


When this is all over

by spockside



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Espionage, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, One True Pairing, Post Avengers (Movie), Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 35,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockside/pseuds/spockside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Tesseract activates in the middle of an American desert, a corresponding event occurs an ocean away, in a facility not known to SHIELD, the WSC, or Loki of Asgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"She's been misbehaving."_  
  
 _"It was a spontaneous event."_  
  
 _"Our calculations are far from complete."_  
  
 _"There may not be a minimum safe distance."_  
  
Coulson watched, appalled, as acres of buildings and technology crumpled inward, following the collapse of the very earth beneath them. The truck he rode in barely managed, at top speed, to stay ahead of the wave of destruction.  
  
 _"The Tesseract is with a hostile force. As of right now...we are at war."_  
  
Thousands of miles away, on a small, densely populated island, a flare of blue light burst to life in an underground chamber that even Nick Fury, the World Security Council, and Loki of Asgard knew nothing about.

* * *

Peggy Carter strained to open her eyes. Her ears were ringing a bit, and she could smell something slightly acrid on the air, a sterile-lab sort of smell. As for her sense of touch, she felt rather disembodied; her face, fingers and toes felt normal, but the rest of her seemed - immovable.  
  
She gave up trying to move her eyelids, instead took a deep breath and let it out. Memory stirred back into life with the influx of oxygen.  
  
A woman's voice said, "Peggy." Quiet, not insistent. "You're doing fine. Don't rush."  
  
It bothered her that she didn't recognize the voice. Her mind felt sluggish, as though she should know what was going on but couldn't quite -  
  
Ah. The lab. Dim lights, people moving about quietly. Injections. The steel sarcophagus she lay in. She'd faded out of consciousness before they had affixed the cover, a precaution against last-minute panic.  
  
Peggy would have snorted in derision, if her body had been up to it. She'd never panicked in her life. Not within memory, anyway. Not even now.  
  
"Peggy."  
  
Surely this unknown voice had something further to say, something useful, such as her condition, location, the date? A name?  
  
Not surprisingly, annoyance gave her impetus to finally drag her eyelids open.  
  
"Welcome back," said the woman leaning over her. Through bleary vision she could make out the shape of a face, brown hair, pale skin.  
  
"I'm not supposed to tell you anything," she said. "I think you _should_ know, though, that you're alive and well, physically; everything worked even better than planned."  
  
That was one answer: she had come through all right.  
  
"I can give you a little water, if you like."  
  
Peggy blinked a few times and managed to part her lips. It was hard to be encouraging with such little range of motion, but it seemed to work. Her attendant ducked out of sight for a moment and returned with a bottle that had a long, bent straw attached to it.  
  
"Easy, now," she said and dribbled a bit of liquid between her lips. "Just a drop."  
  
Peggy swallowed, relieved, and opened her mouth to try to say something. Then she fell asleep.  
  


* * *

  
When Peggy awoke next time, she was able to open her eyes and breathe more normally, and her limbs felt less stiff. She turned her head slightly and saw that she was no longer encased in steel, but lying in a comfortably large hospital bed.  
  
"Don't try lifting your head, just yet," said a woman's voice. The person who came into view was female, medium height and build, brown hair and blue eyes, with a typically medical air of "no nonsense" about her.  
  
The woman laid a hand lightly on Peggy's forehead for a moment and smiled.  
  
"You're doing great," she said. "Want some water?"  
  
"Yes," Peggy managed to whisper and was rewarded with a sip or two. The woman sat down beside the bed and folded her hands in her lap; Peggy gave a faint smile.  
  
"Under the microscope," she murmured.  
  
"Indeed," said the woman. "There'll be hell to pay if anything happens to you now. Sorry I can't explain that. My name is Marianne, by the way."  
  
"Pleased," said Peggy. Talking was more difficult than she'd anticipated. "What year?"  
  
"Can't tell you that, either. I know it must be maddening."  
  
"Who can?" was Peggy's next question.  
  
"He's on his way," was the unexpected answer. "I rang him as soon as you woke up."  
  
"Thanks," said Peggy succinctly, and went back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Anyone observing Dr. Bruce Banner that afternoon would have thought he had not a care in the world. He sat, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee, every so often glancing up at the wall. The fact that he was sitting in one of the world's most expensive living rooms seemed to have escaped his notice, as his feet were propped on the coffee table and there were papers and pencils strewn across the sofa where he sat.  
  
"Dr. Banner," said a mellow, male voice from the air around him.  
  
"Yes, JARVIS."  
  
"Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts have boarded the elevator and are on their way up."  
  
"Thank you," said Bruce simply, and began to fold up the newspaper. When the elevator opened, he stood up and waited for the onslaught.  
  
"Okay, Bruce, what's so - " Tony began, more anxious than angry.  
  
Pepper headed him off. "Hello, Bruce," she said, coming over to give him a hug. "Are you okay?"  
  
"Oh, I'm fine," said Bruce. "Thanks for asking. I think Tony's about to have a fit, though."  
  
Tony had come up and flopped down on the armchair opposite the sofa. "Now that the social conventions have been observed, what's going on, Bruce? And why did Pepper and I fly up here from Miami because couldn't you tell us over the phone or email or what have you?"  
  
"I don't want anyone from SHIELD getting so much as a whiff of this," said Bruce as he and Pepper sat down. "JARVIS has spelled out for me all the precautions against bugging and other surveillance here; I don't trust any outside connection to be as bug-free."  
  
Tony made a "go on" gesture.  
  
Bruce took a deep breath.  
  
"I think there's another piece of the tesseract, here on Earth," he said, "and I think it's become active, since the battle."  
  
"What!" Pepper looked alarmed.  
  
"You're not talking about the staff, though, are you," said Tony thoughtfully. "Nick One-Eye stashed that after we pried Loki out of my floor and sent him on his way."  
  
"No. The activity I've detected is coming from somewhere in England. London, actually." Bruce leaned forward. "As far as you know, your suits and the staff are the only active sources of this kind of energy on the planet, right?"  
  
"As far as we know," replied Tony. "The element I reconstructed is similar to the substance in the HYDRA and Chitauri weapons SHIELD is keeping locked up. Those weapons were all rendered inactive when the Chitauri mother ship blew."  
  
"All except that one those kids found," Bruce added. "But that's been deactivated now as well, or so Blake told us. The radiation levels from the inactive devices is extremely low, doesn't even register outside of about a hundred feet or so."  
  
"How did you detect the activity in England?" Pepper asked.  
  
"Well, the spectrometer data we collected before and during the battle was downloaded to the SHIELD mainframe - and backed up on the Stark server, since you used it to speed up the analysis."  
  
"Aha," Tony grinned. "Guess I forgot to purge that once we ran it, huh."  
  
"Anyway, I've been poring over that data and I noticed an anomalous reading in another location, occurring at the precise moment that Selvig activated the portal device. I followed up on it and found it wasn't a meaningless glitch - and it's still there, by the way. The location of the source for the data I'm getting hasn't altered since the initial activity three weeks ago."  
  
"Pardon me for being obvious," Pepper spoke up. "But how do we know that its location isn't a SHIELD facility?"  
  
"I have investigated the building in question," came JARVIS' voice. "It houses a British medical supply company which is owned by one James Montgomery Falsworth. The majority of the building consists of offices and research laboratories, though the activity reported therein seems to be quite ordinary. I have been unable to detect any connection at all with SHIELD or its subsidiary units."  
  
"So," said Tony. He stood suddenly and rubbed his hands together. "Who wants to go to London?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chitauri weapon found by "those kids" is the subject of the MARVEL One-Shot titled "Item 47".


	3. Chapter 3

"Did she say anything?"  
  
The man in the brown suit stood looking down at his sleeping patient, his expression a mixture of amazement and anxiety. Marianne repeated the few words she'd exchanged with Peggy Carter.  
  
"I don't know when she might be awake next," she said. "It's only been two days since she regained consciousness."  
  
"And the system booted itself five days before that," the man mused. "Still don't know what caused that, by the way. It hasn't - done anything more, has it?"  
  
"If by 'it' you mean that lump of shiny blue glass in the core," Marianne replied dryly, "I haven't looked. That's your department. We've had our hands full trying to find Stark's secret notes, not to mention dusting off the knowledge of biotechnology as it existed in 1949."  
  
"The readings all seem within normal parameters," said the man. "I just wondered if you noticed anything - well, anything *else* going on down here."  
  
"You're thinking about what happened in New York."  
  
"Of course. If our crystal is a chip off the Tesseract - and Stark certainly thought it was - "  
  
"Even so," Marianne broke in, "we have no proof that the Tesseract is capable of independent action. Even in Schmidt's hands, it was only a tool, just as it is here."  
  
"I hope you're right," said the visitor. "At any rate, we don't need it to keep herself alive any more."  
  
The lady in question heard none of this, but slept on.

 

* * *

  
Pepper had not come along on this jaunt.  
  
"You guys have a good trip," she told them. "Scientists' holiday. I wouldn't understand what you were doing, anyway."  
  
"So what's your big plan?" Bruce asked his friend, once they were finally in the air on Tony's jet.   
  
"Don't have one, yet," Tony replied airily, eyes on his diagrams. "I'm kind of a seat-of-my-pants guy, as you well know. I figure we'd settle in, get something to eat, a beer maybe - "  
  
He looked up at Bruce, who was gazing patiently at him as if waiting for his mouth to run down. Tony laughed.   
  
Bruce asked, "Are you just going to pull up to the front door and say, 'Hi there, I'm Tony Stark, got any spare alien tech I can borrow'?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"What if it's in the hands of someone with motives less pure than yours?"  
  
"What if it's been buried in a closet somewhere all this time, and nobody knows what it is?" Tony countered.  
  
"It isn't dangerous on its own, apparently," said Bruce. "Apart from the low level gamma radiation. Did you ever find Howard's original research on the stuff they got from Schmidt's facility?"  
  
"Not all of it." Tony grimaced. "I can piece together some, from the notebook and other clues he left in that crate. Steve found some basic how-not-to-use-these-weapons documentation when he found SHIELD's stash. I gotta hand it to my old man, he knew how to hide the bodies."  
  
"As long as the bad guys can't piece it together," said Bruce, staring out the window.  
  
"They don't have me," Tony replied.


	4. Chapter 4

Peggy's keepers told her they'd tell her more about her situation once she was able to remain conscious for more than an hour or so, so she made an effort to ingest whatever they gave her, sit up for as long as she was permitted, and engage Marianne and the other medics in as much conversation as possible.  
  
Three days after her awakening, she was moved to another room, one with a window but no view. None to speak of, at any rate; just rows of rooftops, like any large city in England, but without the industrial smoke she was used to.  
  
She'd been transported in a wheelchair, which she got in and out of just fine, and sent aloft in a lift that was suspiciously devoid of markings or visible controls. The floor where she now resided was almost exactly like the one she'd left, except for the much-welcome natural light. Her new room had a real bed, not a hospital contraption, and a private washroom.  
  
Marianne caught her looking longingly at the washroom and said, "Tomorrow, if you're up to it."  
  
"I'm up to it now," Peggy protested, but she heaved herself up out of the chair and onto the bed with a sigh.  
  
"There's no lifeguard on duty at present," said the other woman. "We haven't spent all this time and effort on you just to have you faint and hit your head on something."  
  
Peggy laughed. She knew that tone, used it frequently herself, so she allowed herself to be tucked up in bed.  
  
"May I have some tea, Mummy?" she asked meekly.  
  
"Chamomile," Marianne replied. "We'll have to work up to the real thing, sorry."  
  
Peggy accepted her fate - for now. At least she had a window.  
  


* * *

  
A week into her new life, she had a visitor, a man in a business suit who was obviously not of a medical persuasion.  
  
"Miss Carter," he said in even tones. "My name is Newman, Max Newman."  
  
Peggy shook his hand and asked, "Won't you sit down?" Once he had done so, she folded her hands in her lap, feeling oddly disadvantaged as she couldn't plant her fists on her hips.  
  
"I know what day it is, what my name and rank are, the last meal I ate, the names of my parents, and where I went to school," she rattled off. "What can you tell me that I don't know, Mr. Newman?"  
  
"The experiment was a success," he said promptly.  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"Your body, including your brain and other functions, have aged approximately one year since you went into the unit. As far as we can tell, you should expect complete recovery of your faculties and abilities within a week." He studied her for a moment, then added, "What's the last thing you remember?"  
  
"Howard Stark," she said. "Standing next to the containment unit while I went under." She took a moment to recall the sight of him with his hands in his pockets, looking like he was sorry he let her bully him into this.  
  
Taking a deep breath, she asked, "Is Howard still alive?"  
  
"I'm afraid not, Miss Carter. He was killed in an auto accident some time ago."  
  
Peggy was shocked to find tears springing to her eyes.  
  
"This isn't like me, really," she choked out.  
  
"I believe it," said the man. "It's all right, really."  
  
Marianne handed her a handkerchief and she buried her face in it. Then she gave herself a mental shake and pushed her emotions into the back of her mind, wiped her eyes and squared her shoulders.  
  
When she looked up, Mr. Newman was watching her with a mildly impressed expression.  
  
"Very well," she said. "I was to have been resurrected in forty years, or in the event my condition deteriorated. Which is it, then?"  
  
She folded her arms and gave him what Phillips used to call her "no-shit" expression.  
  
"Neither," Newman said, cautiously. "Your condition has been stable since 1949, and the procedure for bringing you out of suspension was - delayed. The year is 2012."  
  
"Bloody hell," Peggy whispered. She leaned back on her pillows, her mind in a whirl. The other two waited patiently.  
  
At last Peggy said, "Howard Stark is gone. Colonel Phillips died before I went under. Is there anything left of the SSR, or its people?"  
  
"In a way," said the man. "It grew into a larger organization and is now known as SHIELD, with a purpose that goes beyond scientific research. Its headquarters is in the U.S. now."  
  
Marianne said, "Americans. Always taking over just when things are getting interesting."  
  
She grinned at Newman, who certainly sounded American and who seemed to take her comment as a well-worn joke.  
  
"At any rate," he went on, "this facility has never been part of the SSR or SHIELD. It was Stark's private research facility, as you probably know."  
  
"Yes, I did," Peggy replied. "Who runs it now?"  
  
"A small group of scientists and - other people. A committee, if you will, made up of people who supported Stark's research in the past. He left the whole operation to this group, lock, stock, and barrel."  
  
Peggy decided there were more urgent questions and she forged on.  
  
"Did Howard ever - find out what happened to Captain Rogers?"  
  
"Howard died before Captain Rogers was found," Marianne said. "But he _was_ found. In fact, quite recently."  
  
"Do you mean, his body was recovered?" Peggy frowned.  
  
"I mean that Rogers was found at the site where his plane came down," Marianne told her. "Catatonic, trapped in deep ice, but alive."  
  
"Alive!" Peggy stared. "In what state? Did he ever regain consciousness?"  
  
"He's still alive, and he appears to be fully recovered," said Marianne. "We really don't know any more than that. He was found by SHIELD's people, and it's all classified as hell."  
  
"Classified? What about the SSR clearances, don't those count for anything?" Her heart sank. "Does no one here have a connection with SHIELD?"  
  
"We do not," said Newman. "Howard Stark was adamant that the SSR, and therefore SHIELD, should not know about this experiment. We don't know why - we were kind of hoping you could tell us something."  
  
"I still think James knows," Marianne said to Newman.  
  
"James?"  
  
"Head of the committee," said Newman shortly. "A friend of Howard. He was the man who inherited the experiment."  
  
Peggy thought, it's this James I need to speak with. If he knew Howard, he _must_ know more than these people.  
  
"Going back to Captain Rogers," she said. "Do you think I could - get in touch with him?"  
  
She was startled when Marianne laid her hand on Peggy's, as if to comfort her.  
  
"Eventually," she said. "He's part of SHIELD, and we don't want to tip our hand to SHIELD just yet. If you pop up in this century you - and we - will have a devil of a time figuring out what to tell them."  
  
Peggy, who knew the uses of information and the distortion thereof in times of conflict, sighed. The conversation ended quickly; she pleaded fatigue, had a cup of chamomile and some bread, and fell asleep yet again.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony was more thankful than ever that he'd installed a link to JARVIS on his tablet. He and Bruce were sprawled on the sofas in Tony's London flat; Bruce was watching Doctor Who and Tony was alternately jotting design notes and looking for further data on their mission.  
  
"JARVIS, how much background information do you have on James Falsworth?"  
  
"The usual public records, sir. Birth, ancestry, military service, professional background. Is there something in particular you're looking for?"  
  
"He's Lord Falsworth, that much we know," Tony mused. "And he fought in World War II. Can you find out where, with whom, all that?"  
  
"Of course." There was an extremely brief pause. "James Montgomery Falsworth, served in the British Army from 1940 until his retirement in 1980. Most of his record is still classified, but I have found a reference to his being liberated from a HYDRA camp near Azzano, Italy in 1943, along with over 200 other captives."  
  
"Wait, what?" Tony closed his eyes, thinking. "1943, Italy? Where was my dad at that time? I seem to remember a story..."  
  
"Howard Stark had relocated to London to head up the SSR research and development effort," JARVIS reported. "As you know, he lived there until 1950, at which time he returned to the U.S. and helped reorganize what is now SHIELD."  
  
"That part, I did not know," Tony corrected. "I didn't know a damn thing about SHIELD until Fury showed up, in my own living room, no less. I'm still docking your pay for that incident, by the way."  
  
"As you wish, sir," said JARVIS dryly.  
  
"The story I remember was...something about flying over enemy territory - over Italy - in a Stark plane," said Tony. "And a joke about fondue. It's been too long. I wonder if old Dad had something to do with that rescue mission?"  
  
"I can find no evidence for or against such a theory," JARVIS admitted. "I have learned, however, that for the Stark family, nearly anything is possible."  
  
!~!~!~!  
  
Peggy was getting more restless every day. It had been a fortnight at least since her revival; she was eating well, taking exercise by walking up and down the long hallway of locked doors on her level, and reading some history. Carefully edited, of course, and more amazingly, on a device like an electric slate, called a tablet. One touched the pages instead of turning them. She could see the advantages to it, but she knew she'd always prefer paper.  
  
The sketch of civilization as it had developed since 1949 was actually rather predictable. The cold war of which Orwell had written, the continuing demise of ancestral empires - with the exception of Great Britain, she noted, pleased that Elizabeth had reigned for so long.  
  
She was tired of reading when she got to the 1960s, so she got up and stretched and went to look out the window for a moment. Moments later, Marianne gave a discreet knock on the door and was admitted; she came over to Peggy, holding a small device.  
  
"It's a telephone," she said, handing it to Peggy. "You speak in this end and listen at the other."  
  
"A call, for me?" For a second her heart leapt, as she thought of Steve, but when she lifted the thing to her face and said, "Hello?" the voice was that of an older, British man.  
  
"Peggy, old girl," said the man. "I hope you remember me. It's Falsworth, James Falsworth."  
  
Peggy sat rather suddenly, fortunately landing in an armchair.  
  
"Lieutenant Falsworth?"  
  
"As was. Formerly of the Howling Commandos. Please tell me you remember the Howlers."  
  
"Of course I do. James! Good Lord, how old are you now?"  
  
"Don't bother mincing words," chuckled James. "I'm just shy of ninety, and glad to be alive to hear your voice. I'm coming down for a visit tomorrow, will you be in?"  
  
"Most likely," said Peggy, starting to smile. "You may inquire of my keepers. Of whom you're one, actually, from what I now understand."  
  
Marianne was lurking nearby, grinning.  
  
"Yes, that's my niece, your doctor. My brother's daughter. Brilliant, of course - where she gets it from I'll never know. I must go pack a few things now. See you tomorrow, in time for tea."  
  
"That will be wonderful."  
  
She handed the telephone back to Marianne, who was beaming.  
  
"I'm so glad he's coming," said the doctor. "There are so many things that really, only he can talk to you about."  
  
"His family, for one," Peggy smiled.  
  
"Oh, yes. He had two brothers, my dad and Uncle Terry, and a whole raft of nieces and nephews. Uncle James lives on the family estate with a crew of old rogues like himself, retired military mostly."  
  
"Did he ever marry?" Peggy asked.  
  
"No," said Marianne, "but I think it was because he preferred, and I quote, the brief insanity of an affair to the prolonged psychosis of monogamy."  
  
Now that sounds like the James I remember, Peggy thought as she laughed.


	6. Chapter 6

Once Tony had showered and caffeinated the next morning, he got out his notes and consulted JARVIS.  
  
"Has there been any unusual activity in the past - three weeks, J?"  
  
"As I have had the building under surveillance for only ten days, sir, my data is incomplete."  
  
"Inconceivable."  
  
"Still," the AI continued smoothly, "within the last ten days there has been one person who is not named as personnel for the facility, who has spent at least six hours inside the building every day."  
  
"And his name is?"  
  
"Dr. Maxwell Newman, sir. An American on sabbatical, attending various scientific conferences throughout Europe."  
  
"What kind of science?"  
  
"Physics, sir, with a few forays into the world of chemistry and mathematics."  
  
"Newman?" said Bruce, coming into the dining area and pouring himself some orange juice. "I don't know the name, but then, I'm behind in my journals."  
  
"Apparently Dr. Newman is not well known in his field," JARVIS reported. "He publishes very little, and in rather obscure areas. One of which, I notice, is the relationship of Ludwig Schläfli's study of convex regular polychora to the concept of multidimensionality in physics, putting forth the possibility of detecting and exploring an interdimensional plane."   
  
Tony and Bruce stared at each other.   
  
"Maybe it's just the words 'interdimensional plane'," Tony said, "but does that mean what I think it means?"  
  
"I think so," Bruce replied. "As far as we're able to understand it, the only convex regular polychoron ever seen on Earth is the tesseract."  
  
!~!~!~!  
  
Peggy was actually dressed, in a loose pair of trousers and a long-sleeved blouse, and she'd bathed and tidied her hair. She felt almost normal.  
  
There was the sound of the lift doors opening, then a quiet knock on her door. She went over to open it and saw Marianne arm in arm with an elderly gentleman. He had a lean, wiry frame, white hair, and a familiar sparkle in his eye.  
  
"James," said Peggy, holding out her hands. The gentleman thus addressed took them and then leaned in to embrace her. There was nothing frail about him and she felt - well, relieved.  
  
"Afraid I'd turned into an old rickety invalid?" said James. "You can squeeze harder, I won't break."  
  
Peggy laughed and sat down to pour tea.  
  
"I can't say you haven't changed a bit," she said. "But you're still the James I used to know. Dear Lord, I just saw you at Christmas - at least - "  
  
"I can imagine," James said gently, sitting in an armchair. "Looking at you now, I feel as though no time has passed. None at all. This is extraordinary, old girl, you have no idea."  
  
"The experiment, you mean?"  
  
"The way it ended up," he replied, taking a cup of tea from Peggy. "You've been told about the delay, I presume?"  
  
"Only that there was one. Can you explain why, without a full lecture on the science?"  
  
"I've been going back over the memories on the journey here," he mused. "Some time in the 1970s, just after the Vietnam War - did they tell you about that? You'll get to it sooner or later. At any rate, Howard got the wind up about spies and Russians, not that I blame him, but he had two obsessions at the time: the tesseract and finding Captain Rogers."  
  
"They did tell me about Steve," Peggy said.  
  
"Howard had been doing some top-secret research with a Russian scientist named Vanko, who turned out to be a traitor and got shipped back to his homeland. Howard then started systematically destroying or encrypting his research notes. It seems he'd made some kind of breakthrough on the tesseract and was determined to keep his knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. Not that anyone knows who that is, any more...Well, he left a few clues here and there and who knows where, and then he was killed rather suddenly in an automobile accident, in 1991."  
  
"By which time you should have been revived," Marianne put in. "Howard told the committee that he had good reasons to delay that process - but he wouldn't say why, not to anyone. And as he was the only one who knew it - well, it was his project."  
  
"And he'd worked so hard to keep it secret," said James, "which backfired on him, and us. We've been working since 1991, trying to reverse engineer the contraption that you were hooked up to, with no luck."  
  
"That bit of the tesseract that he kept," Peggy guessed. The other two looked startled.  
  
"What do you know about it?" asked Marianne.  
  
"About its physical properties, nothing," said Peggy. "Only that it was a source of power, and that Howard believed it could - and should - be used for applications other than destruction. That's what this experiment was all about."  
  
"No wonder he didn't want SHIELD to get wind of it," said James. "They have a way of taking over projects they think they can use for their own purposes."  
  
"But if SHIELD is what the SSR became - "  
  
James shook his head. "They're not the same animal any more, Peggy. SSR's roots were in military defense in wartime, to be sure, but - I don't know. They're far more secretive now than seems necessary. I think that after Howard died, SHIELD pulled up the drawbridge and locked up everything they were working on. I don't say that it was because of Howard - or Vanko - but..."  
  
He trailed off doubtfully. Peggy sighed.  
  
"Very well," she said. "If you didn't work out how to revive me, what happened?"


	7. Chapter 7

"So we're not going today?" asked Bruce.

 

"I don't want to go until I know Newman's there," Tony replied. "We don't know which of the staff know about the source of the radiation, but I'm betting he does. I don't want to spook him by showing up prematurely and alerting the rest of them."

 

They were on the roof of the building that housed Tony's flat; the fog had lifted enough for an intermittently sunny view of London. The two sat in lounge chairs drinking beer and arguing about science, and Tony's plan was starting to take form.

 

"Hmm," Bruce said. "Is that why we're keeping such a low profile? Low for you, I mean."

 

Tony laughed. "Yeah, this is hardly the Cook's tour, is it? You're right. I don't want anyone to mention that the brilliant Tony Stark and his even more brilliant friend - "

 

Bruce snorted.

 

" - Dr. Bruce Banner have arrived on this side of the pond. Your name still means something in the science world, you know."

 

"I didn't know," said his friend. "And apart from its usefulness to my research, I don't care, either."

 

"Excuse me, sir," said the voice of JARVIS, coming eerily from the pocket of Tony's jeans. He pulled out his phone and said to it, "What is it, JARVIS?"

 

"I have a call you may wish to take, sir. Or perhaps not. Director Fury is calling."

 

"That was quick," Bruce muttered.

 

"Tell him I'll be with him in five minutes," Tony said to his AI. "Come on, Bruce, let's go back downstairs to my secret lair."

 

He led Bruce back down into the flat and to a door Bruce hadn't yet opened. The room inside was small, padded on all sides and ceiling with thick foam, and held only a chair, a flat monitor mounted on the wall, and a remote control. The lighting was neutral, and when Tony shut the door it was like being in a cocoon.

 

"Sorry I can't offer you a seat," he said to Bruce. "If you wouldn't mind standing against the door, Fury won't know you're here. Might be important."

 

Bruce shrugged and stood with his arms folded, back to the door, as Tony sat down and pressed a button on the remote. Nick Fury's voice emerged from the monitor speakers, and even though Bruce couldn't see the screen he could tell the man was pissed off.

 

"Stark, where the hell are you?"

 

"Uh, in my private phone booth, don't you recognize it?" Tony grinned at the screen.

 

"You have five of those things in different time zones," Fury growled. "And they all look and sound alike."

 

"Well, to answer your question, Director," said Tony in a tone that meant just the opposite, "I'm in one of my many residences, working in seclusion."

 

"On what?"

 

"A personal project." Tony waved a hand vaguely. "Nothing to do with SHIELD."

 

"Anything to do with Dr. Banner?"

 

"Dr. Banner? No, why? Have you lost him, again?"

 

"I hope not," Fury replied. "He was seen boarding your private jet two days ago and has not been seen in New York since."

 

Tony smirked. He knew that the security on his flight plan was so tight that it would take even SHIELD a couple of days to gain access to the information, legally or otherwise. And Tony had sent the pilot - and the plane - on to Dubai with orders to relax and enjoy himself for a week, just to keep SHIELD off their scent.

 

"I didn't throw him out of the plane, if that's what you're getting at," he told Fury. "Besides, he's not a SHIELD asset, he can go where he wants."

 

"Neither are you," Fury shot back. "But I've learned it's in our best interests to know where you are at all times, in case you take on a mission against our better judgment."

 

"Good luck with that." Tony cut the connection abruptly and stood up.

  
"Come on, let's put on some disguises and go for fish & chips. I'm going stir crazy here."


	8. Chapter 8

Peggy had skipped several decades of history in order to catch up (more or less) on the recent events in New York City. Dr. Newman had transferred several files to the tablet Marianne had given her, and between James, Marianne, and the films and articles, they'd managed to give her an overview of what had happened over Manhattan.

 

"It's obvious that there's some kind of power source on the roof of Stark Tower," said Marianne. "And just as obvious that it was instrumental in opening the portal that admitted the attackers. It couldn't have been just the arc reactor - there must have been something boosting the power."

 

"I'll take your word for it," Peggy said. She was still stunned at the image of the tower, sweeping majestically over the other buildings, with the name of a man she once knew blazing across the top. At least, in the beginning.

 

"And you say that the power source Howard installed in my support system was activated at the same time that power source did?"

 

"It seems so. Your system has been powered by various sources over the years, the most recent being a relative of Tony Stark's reactor. Twenty years older, of course. The thing that rebooted the revival protocols is a fragment of what Howard believed to be the tesseract."

 

Peggy stared at the screen. It struck her that, had the fragment never activated, she might have slept on for eternity, and she shivered at the thought. She tapped a small image called a "thumbnail", one she hadn't seen before, and her attention was immediately riveted.

 

"Peggy?"

 

"Miss Carter?"

 

She couldn't bring herself to look away. The picture that had flared large on her tablet was a photograph, amateurish and indistinct, but unmistakably Steve Rogers. Steve, in a grimy uniform that looked almost exactly like his old one, his helmet missing, with a desperate expression on his face.

 

"It's Steve, isn't it," she whispered.

 

"Yes," James told her. "It is. He led the defense against the Chitauri, the team they're now calling the Avengers."

 

"These Avengers - you're telling me there's a being from Norse legend, a man who transforms into some kind of huge berserker, two very mysterious human agents, and a fellow who's invented a suit of armor that flies and carries weaponry."

 

"Iron Man," Marianne supplied.

 

"Tony Stark," James added, and when Peggy looked startled he said, "Howard's son. Brilliant man, rather a loose cannon at times. He did save the Earth, though. Some fool decided the best way to get rid of the Chitauri was to level New York City with a nuclear missile, and Stark managed to redirect it away from the city and up into the Chitauri portal. Destroyed one of their command ships. You'll see it when you read the rest of the coverage."

 

"Nuclear missile," said Peggy, feeling rather numb. "They - we still have those kinds of weapons, then."

 

James shook his head in sympathy.

 

"Sorry to report it, old girl. After Nagasaki, you'd think we'd have learned, but history went the other way instead. You'll find that, in some ways, the world hasn't changed much at all."

 

!~!~!~!

 

"One thing about London," said Bruce, "it doesn't change much at all."

 

He was standing at the window after breakfast, hands in his pockets, gazing out over the city and its iconic sights.

 

"It's cleaner," Tony offered. "Back in the 1970s and '80s they did a lot of restoration to the old soot-covered monuments. And they had to spiff it up for the Olympics, of course. When was the last time you were here?"

 

"Ages. On sabbatical for a year. I spent most of it with my head down over either instrumentation or data. Or both. How about you?"

 

"Ages," echoed Tony. "Pepper's the jet-setter; she goes hither and yon in the interests of the company and never seems to have any trouble with time zone lag. She's stayed at this place half a dozen times in the last couple of years."

 

"Five times, sir," JARVIS announced, "since she became a consultant to Stark Industries."

 

"I sit corrected."

 

"Is this where Howard lived, back in the day?" asked Bruce.

 

"Yep," said Tony carelessly. Then he sat up straight. "Yes, he did," he went on. "The whole building was his - now mine - from cellar to attic. JARVIS, we do have a cellar and an attic, don't we?"

 

"According to the building plans, we do, sir. They have been used for storage since the building went out of regular use."

 

"Do you have any record of what's stored here?"

 

"None, sir, only a note by the executor of Howard Stark's will, directing that several dozen boxes were to be sealed and stored here per the request of Mr. Stark."

 

Tony leaped to his feet.

 

"That would have been Obadiah Stane," he said grimly. "Let's go see if he did his job right, for a change."

 

As it turned out, the "cellar" was adequately lit and climate controlled. There was a tarp laid neatly over the boxes stored in stacks against one wall; there was also a metal desk, a work table with nothing on it, and several wooden crates with miscellaneous parts in them.

 

"Still sealed," Tony crowed. "I can't believe I didn't think of this before. Dad moved out before I was born and we only ever stayed here a few times when I was a kid. I always thought all his personal effects were left at the house in Manhattan."

 

"What are you hoping to find?" asked Bruce.

 

"No idea," Tony said, taking the top off one of the boxes. "But that never stopped me before."

 

"Before you start your scavenger hunt, I have a suggestion."

 

"Go," said Tony as he sat on the desk with the box, rummaging.

 

"How about telling them the truth?"

 

"Telling whom, what?"

 

"The people at that facility where the gamma radiation has been detected," said Bruce. "Telling them what our data says, and asking if they know anything about it."

 

Tony frowned. "What if it's a super-secret HYDRA base, or worse?"

 

"Then I'll have gained some valuable information," said his friend. "Which we can pass on to SHIELD, or Steve, or whoever you think should know. After the other guy flattens the place."

 

He said it without irony or bravado; it was simply the truth, for better or worse.

 

"Well..." Tony said slowly.

 

"Think about it. You're too recognizable, you said it yourself, but nobody knows me, not to look at, anyway. And I am actually an expert in gamma radiation, so it's not like I'd be lying about that. I don't have to mention you or SHIELD or anyone official."

 

Contrary to popular belief, Tony didn't like the idea of lying...most of the time.

  
"Go with God," he said to Bruce. "I'll probably be right here when you get back."


	9. Chapter 9

James visited again the following day, before he had to return home, and then Max the day after, but Peggy knew when she was being humored.

"How long must I stay here, in this comfortable cage?" she asked Marianne.

"That's not up to me," said her companion. They were drinking tea and watching the sunset out of Peggy's windows.

"Whom do I badger, then? Not James, surely. Dr. Newman?"

"He has a lot to do with - part of this setup," Marianne told her. "The science end, the people who deal with the tesseract material. The medical side is under a doctor whom you haven't met - she and Max decide what happens with your situation."

"Very well, then. Please arrange for me to meet the doctor, won't you? I'd like to begin my new life and I most certainly cannot spend it as a - " Peggy's voice caught for a moment, then she went on, "A lab rat."

"I'll make that clear," Marianne smiled. "Be sure to badger Max about it, too. He could use a bit of a stir."

 ***

"Ms. Carter is on her way to full recovery," Marianne told Dr. Hodges that evening. "There appears to be no degradation of her neural pathways or cellular damage. She seems emotionally and intellectually capable of processing what information we've given her, and to remain mentally stable while understanding clearly what's happened while she was unconscious."

"More than you can say for some who lived through it," Dr. Hodges muttered. "I'm afraid we've become rather complacent about the Carter experiment, and it's come back to haunt us. In more ways than one."

"The timing is off, certainly," Marianne began.

Dr. Hodges stood and started to pace.

"The timing makes perfect sense once you have all the information," she countered. "I'm fairly sure we don't have all the information, but I did have a caller today who provided some enlightenment."

There was a sharp rap at the door, quite the opposite of Quinn's usual discreet tap, and Hodges called out, "Come in, Max."

Max Newman came rushing in, stopping in his tracks when he saw Marianne.

"You wanted to talk to me," he said slowly to Hodges. "About - your visitor."

"I was about to tell Marianne about him as well," said Lee. "Sit down, Max, and keep calm. This morning," she went on, speaking to both of them, "I had a visit from a Dr. Bruce Banner. Dr. Banner, my research shows, is an obscure but respected scientist in the field of gamma radiation and its effect on the human body."

"I have heard of him," said Max. "He's only slightly less obscure than myself in that field."

"Dr. Banner came here in search of an explanation, of an anomaly in his data: a radiation source which he says appeared after the battle over New York. Located in this building."

Marianne looked over at Max, astonished, but he looked more worried than surprised.

"How in the world could he have detected it? Is he working in London, or even in this country?" he asked.

"He's been going over data from instruments all over the world - he was not at liberty to say where, precisely. However, he did say that this was the only radiation 'of this type' he had detected and that he was eager to study whatever was causing it."

"Do you think - does he know what's causing it?" Marianne asked.

"He plays very close to the chest," said Hodges wryly. "As do I. I asked him to return tomorrow with samples of his data. Max, I need you to meet with him and see whether he has something of substance, or if he's simply talking through his hat."

She turned then to Marianne.

"What's your recommendation regarding Miss Carter, doctor?"

"She's getting very restive," Marianne replied. "I see no medical reason to keep her here. Didn't anyone have a plan for what to do once she was revived?"

Dr. Hodges looked sharply at her. "Howard Stark did. Unfortunately he didn't leave any clue as to what it was or where to find his notes on this whole operation. We have your uncle's account and the scant information from the SSR files, and that's all."

"Not quite," said Max. The women turned to look at him; he went on, "Has anyone thought of talking to Tony Stark?"

***

"Do you know how difficult it is to carry on an intelligent conversation with a device going off in your pocket every five seconds?" Bruce demanded when he found Tony still in the cellar.

"Do you know how difficult it is to know there's an intelligent conversation relative to your interests that you're not actually present for?" Tony retorted, but he was smiling. "I did quit texting you once I found something here to keep me busy, did you notice?"

"I turned the phone off, so no. What did you find?"

"Pictures," Tony told him, waving a handful of paper. "And I don't mean family reunion stuff. Look."

Bruce sat down on the floor next to his friend and leafed through the black and white images. "Old SSR photos," he noted. "When were these taken? Holy crap."

The last comment was made in response to a photo of a group of people standing in front of Piccadilly Circus, not a stiff, official portrait, but a clump of friends with grins and windblown hair. There were seven men, all but one in uniform, and one woman; Bruce recognized only two of them.

"Steve," he pointed out. "And - Howard?"

"Yep. Look on the back."

On the back of the photo, in smudged pencil, was a scrawl similar to Tony's, a series of names.

"Steve Rogers," Bruce read. "Tim Dugan, Gabe Jones, Dernier, Jim Morita, Falsworth, 'Bucky' Barnes. And...Peggy? Who's Peggy?"

He handed the photo back to Tony and shrugged. "I'm guessing that's the Falsworth who runs the facility - otherwise, none of those names rings a bell."

"I've heard Steve mention an old pal named Bucky," Tony said. "I'm going to have JARVIS scan this and see if he can dig up anything on the rest of these people."

"Or we could just ask Steve," suggested Bruce.

"Do *you* have any idea where Steve is?" Tony snorted. "Old Nick has him out on a mission as of oh-dark-thirty this morning. JARVIS checked, no particulars. Come on. And tell me on the way, about your tete-a-tete with the scientist."

"It was very polite," said Bruce as they went upstairs. "Dr. Lee Hodges, her name is. She has a couple of advanced degrees in nuclear medicine and radiation biology. The facility runs clinical trials; there are no actual wards there."

"Sounds plausible."

"Yeah, so when I told her about the data she seemed sincerely interested; she asked me to come tomorrow and bring it along."

Tony gave him a look.

"You know me," Bruce said to the unspoken question. "I won't give her anything pertaining to the tesseract, or Loki, or even SHIELD. Just the data from London. I spent years on the run, Tony, I know when to inform and when to withhold."

"Can I go with you this time?" Tony asked plaintively. Bruce laughed.

"We'll see," he said.

Within half an hour, JARVIS had researched the faces and other details in the group photo; Tony and Bruce were having dinner when the results were announced.

"Hit me, J," said Tony.

"The photograph was taken in April, 1943," the A.I. began, "shortly after Captain Rogers returned to London from Italy. Other than Mr. Howard Stark, the other gentlemen in the picture were freed in the raid on Azzano which was Captain Rogers' first mission.

"From left to right, they are Corporal Timothy Dugan and Private Gabriel Jones of the United States Army, Jacques Dernier of the French Resistance, Specialist First Class James Morita and Sergeant James Barnes of the U. S. Army, and Lieutenant James Montgomery Falsworth of the British Army. Together they formed a tactical group known as the 'Howling Commandos', under Captain Rogers and Colonel Chester Phillips, functioning almost entirely in the European theater until the conclusion of the war. Their goal was specifically to destroy HYDRA facilities and collect intelligence on the enemy."

"What about the dame?" Tony asked. Bruce rolled his eyes.

"The _lady_ in the picture," said JARVIS repressively, "is Agent Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. She was liaison to the U.S. Armed Forces during Project Rebirth, the experimental procedure which altered Captain Rogers' physical condition."

"That's putting it mildly. Quite a motley crew, JARVIS. Are any of these folks still alive?"

"Timothy Dugan, Gabriel Jones, and James Morita continued in the armed forces after the war; Morita is currently living in a managed-care facility in California. Dugan and Jones are both deceased. James Barnes was killed in action while a member of the Howling Commandos, as was Jacques Dernier, who was killed by sniper fire shortly before the war ended. Captain Rogers' fate, of course, you know."

"And Falsworth we know about. What about Agent Carter?"

"Her official status is 'retired', with no further information except a residential address in England."

"Look at Steve, though," Tony said, examining the photo yet again. "He's not even looking at the camera."

"He's looking at Peggy Carter," Bruce remarked.


	10. Chapter 10

Peggy Carter had her meeting, the following morning, and it was quite unsatisfactory.

"I quite understand your caution," she told Dr. Hodges, having been brought to the latter's office. "Especially in regard to the tesseract fragment. Surely you can trust me not to reveal its existence to anyone. Loose lips sink ships, and all that."

Dr. Hodges didn't look amused.

"It isn't that simple," she said. "I'm not sure what Howard Stark planned to do about you once you were revived - no one can find his notes on that - and there have been some unforeseen developments in the rest of the world that make it even more imperative that we keep quiet about the fragment."

"What developments?"

"I'm afraid - "

"Please," said Peggy emphatically. "Don't let's beat around the bush. I've had enough of people rationing out intel to me in dribs and drabs. I've read everything I've been given about recent history, the attack on New York, even one or two articles about Howard. And many more about Captain America, so if you think I'm going to sit tamely and consume more porridge, you are completely mistaken."

Dr. Hodges studied her for a minute, then spoke.

"What you won't read about, anywhere, is that the tesseract itself is suspected to be the power source that was used to open the alien portal over Stark Tower," she said. "Suspected, because our scientists aren't privy to the details of that incident. We were debating the prospect of contacting SHIELD when your unit was suddenly activated."

"And now? How has that debate changed?" Peggy asked.

"We were about to bring you into the conversation, in the next several days," said Hodges. "However, we've come into a bit of luck. Actually, a great deal of it. I was visited yesterday by a Dr. Banner, who is an expert in gamma radiation, one of the signature properties of the tesseract and its byproducts. He's due to return today with a report on his data from the New York incident."

"What makes you think you can trust him?"

"First of all, he has no connection with SHIELD that we can find. Second, even Max has barely heard of him, and Max is our current expert on the topic of the tesseract and gamma rays.

Banner might be keeping a low profile for purposes of survival, but - well, once you meet him, you can take his measure yourself."

"I'd love to have that opportunity." Peggy would have loved to have a chance to meet anyone at all outside the dozen people she'd been living with for the past several weeks.

***

It was mid-morning when Quinn came into Dr. Hodges' office, where the two women were talking and drinking tea.

"Doctor," said Quinn, very quietly. "Dr. Banner has brought along a guest. I've asked them both to wait - I'm not sure how wise it would be to admit them both."

"Who is the guest?"

"Tony Stark, doctor."

There was a stunned silence. Hodges looked from Quinn to Peggy, then said, "What the devil is he doing here?"

"Why don't we find out?" Peggy smiled.

Quinn caught Dr. Hodges' eye, nodded, and went out, leaving the door open; a moment later two men entered the room.

At first glance, Peggy knew which of them was Howard's son, although the resemblance wasn't that striking. There was something in his manner, the bright curiosity in his eyes, that spoke of a person who was constantly evaluating, investigating.

The other man was about the same height as Stark, with curly dark hair dusted with grey and a modest way about him, even when simply standing and reaching to shake Dr. Hodges' hand.

"It's good to see you again," he said to her. "This is a friend of mine - well, a colleague - "

"Lab partner," said Stark firmly, taking her hand in turn. "Tony Stark. Hope you don't mind me tagging along."

"We'll see," said Hodges judiciously. "I have a guest as well. Dr. Banner, Mr. Stark - this is Peggy Carter. She's part of a long-term study we're doing here."

Peggy rose and extended her hand. "All very confidential, of course," she said. "Very pleased to meet you, gentlemen."

The two men were staring at her as though they'd seen a ghost - but surely they had no idea who she was? James had said that even Howard's family, even Tony, hadn't known about this experiment.

"I hear you have some information that might prove useful to our project," she said, sitting down. They shook off their apparent surprise and took their seats on either side of Hodges.

"I hope it'll be mutually beneficial," Banner responded. He activated the tablet he was holding and handed it to Dr. Hodges, who started to read through whatever was on the screen.

"Tell me, Mr. Stark," Peggy asked while Banner and Hodges muttered to each other. "What's your interest in our little operation?"

"It's Bruce's interest, really," he explained. His tone was light, but he was scrutinizing her like an insect under a microscope. "Trying to figure out where the radiation is coming from, and why it just appeared like that."

"What do you think caused it?"

"Well, Bruce is 99% sure that it has to be a substance that either came from or was synthesized to imitate an element that was involved in the New York attacks," Stark continued. "About which we have to be cagey as well, for various reasons. I can tell you, though, that I know exactly what the element consists of, and furthermore, how to synthesize it for fun and profit."

He glanced at Banner, who shrugged and said, "Your element, your call."

"Your element?" Dr. Hodges frowned. "What on Earth?"

"You haven't heard of it yet," said Stark. Peggy was alarmed to see he was removing his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt. "It's classified, at the moment. Which is fine, because I haven't even named it yet - I'm thinking 'starkonium' would have a nice ring to it."

"Mr. Stark," said Dr. Hodges. "Why are you disrobing in my office?"

"Trying to distract you - is it working?" That smirk was directly descended from Howard Stark, Peggy thought, repressing an urge to roll her eyes. This Stark had unbuttoned his shirt down to the waistband of his trousers, and she saw with a start that there was a blue circular glow beneath the thin white shirt underneath.

"I think I can leave the t-shirt on," he said. Pulling the fabric taut, he showed them a clear outline, something circular and metallic embedded in his sternum, and Peggy leaned forward to get a good look.

"And this is the element you've discovered?" she said.

"It was Howard Stark - my dad, you may have heard of him - who discovered its structure and properties, but he couldn't figure out a way to recreate it. Didn't have the technology, at the time. Fortunately for me, I do."

"I've read a bit about your father," said Peggy cautiously. "Is that the same material used to power the Iron Man suit?"

"Yep," Stark replied, starting to rebutton his shirt. "The element itself is part of the arc reactor unit. Before that I was using palladium and it was slowly poisoning me."

"Let me get this straight," said Dr. Hodges, rising from her chair to pace the room. "The element in your chest piece was synthesized by you, using data collected by Howard Stark."

"Correct," said Stark.

"And the - radiation that Dr. Banner detected in our facility, is it the same type and level of radiation as your unit?"

"Not exactly," said Banner. "Close, but not identical. Like the readings from the parent artifact, there are consistent, though small, differences."

There was a pause and a palpable tension in the room, as though everyone were waiting to see who would speak first. Then the door opened to admit, not Quinn, but Max Newman, who stopped to stare at the assembled characters. Then he smiled.

"I think it's time we had a chat," he said, rubbing his hands together.


	11. Chapter 11

The "chat" consisted of an argument between Newman and Hodges as to the nature and quantity of information to divulge, followed by a guarded discussion of Banner's findings between Banner, Hodges, and Newman.

Peggy kept her ears open for the bits and pieces of science that she could understand; Stark sat nearly motionless in an armchair, not even fidgeting with his tablet, just staring at nothing. He came back to life when Max rose from his seat with a sigh.

"Perhaps we could continue this discussion tomorrow," Max was saying anxiously. His eyes were on Dr. Banner, who looked mildly confused, and Peggy noticed that Dr. Hodges appeared to be rather annoyed, at Max, she thought.

"Maybe a change of venue would be good," said Banner. "Tony, would you mind if I invited Drs. Hodges and Newman to lunch? And Miss Carter, if that's appropriate."

"Sure, no problem! We can have the kitchen throw something together," Stark said vaguely. "Can't do it tomorrow, though - I have to see a man about a dog."

"Day after, then," said Bruce.

* * *

"I sensed a strategic retreat was in order," said Bruce as he and Tony got in the car. "And a gesture of good faith. Food's usually a good move. Who's the man, and what's the dog for?"

"I think I'd like to have a talk with one of the other guys in that picture," said Tony.

The next day, he and Bruce were out and about again, this time leaving London proper and heading north. When the car pulled up in front of a mansion obviously older than anything Tony had ever lived in, Bruce shook his head.

"One guy lives here? Seriously?"

"Actually, he lives here with a couple of dozen retired British Army and SSR people," Tony said. "He sounded pretty spry on the phone, but I get the feeling we're whippersnappers compared to everyone here."

Including the butler, who showed them to a surprisingly plain sitting room and closed the doors on them. Bruce wandered the room with his hands in his pockets and Tony made himself at home with the Times and a wing chair.

He'd barely turned a page when the doors opened once more and a tall, elderly gentleman in tweed came in.

"'Ello, 'ello, 'ello," he said cheerfully. He moved slowly and deliberately, shaking first Tony's hand and then Bruce's. "I'm Lord Falsworth. You must be Dr. Banner. And Mr. Stark - I knew your father. You hear that a lot, I imagine."

"Not so much, any more," said Tony.

"Well, sit down, won't you? I hear you've been to our little science experiment in town, met Hodges and Newman and all."

"We did," Bruce spoke up. "We knew you were connected to the facility and the project. We were wondering if you could tell us whether Howard Stark had anything to do with it."

Falsworth looked at Tony. Tony shook his head.

"Maybe you didn't know him later in life," he said. "His paranoia was legendary; he took a lot of his secrets to the grave. As I recently found out. So if he had any fingers in the London operation, I'd probably be the last to know.

"I've been staying in Howard's London digs," Tony went on. "I was rifling through a few boxes I found there, that haven't been opened in decades. And I found this, for one thing."

He handed the group photo to Falsworth, who took it and looked it over fondly.

"The old team," he said. "Howard, Barnes, Rogers - the usual suspects, as they say. Think I'm the last man standing, now. Barnes was killed during a mission -- Dernier as well. Never heard what happened to the others - except Rogers, of course."

"Jim Morita's living in assisted care in California," Bruce put in. "Just out of curiosity, who's 'Peggy'? What happened to her?"

"Agent Peggy Carter, of the Strategic Scientific Reserve," said Falsworth. "Went missing after the War. I think she was doing something top secret for MI6."

"Steve looks kind of - distracted," Bruce pointed out.

"As well he might," Falsworth chuckled. "Peggy was rather a distracting woman. Not intentionally - she would have brought down the wrath of God on anyone who accused her of being a vamp. I think her extreme competence and low tolerance for idiots were the most attractive things about her."

"Sounds like Steve wasn't the only one." Bruce grinned.

"I should say not. There were many of us who admired her from a safe distance."

Tony and Bruce exchanged a look.

"I heard a lot about Captain America from my dad," said Tony. "But he never said anything about Steve having a sweetheart."

"I wouldn’t call it that. Rather sad, how it all ended - he might have gathered the nerve to ask her out, eventually. Surely, though, you haven't sought me out for a mere trip down memory lane?"

"Well, to begin with..." Bruce said, "you're the head of an organization that runs an oncology clinic in London, to which we have traced an unusual type of radiation; the scientists there have verified its existence, but they refuse to reveal the source."

"Radiation is used in cancer treatment, as you know."

Bruce shook his head. "Not this kind. So far, the only occurrences of this particular signature have been found in a substance constructed from an element discovered by Howard Stark."

"And synthesized by me," said Tony. "He seems to have destroyed all but the most subtle clues as to its origins, but I have a pretty good idea by now. Thus coming back to the question: why does a facility owned by you contain a substance once known only to Howard, the SSR - and HYDRA?"

Falsworth was silent for some time, during which Tony remained admirably quiet. Then the older man sighed and turned to look at him.

"Just a moment, gentlemen."

He took a phone from the pocket of his jacket and pressed a button to make a call; almost immediately he said, "Marianne, my dear. Yes, 'tis me. I have two visitors here who apparently dropped in at the clinic yesterday - yes. Yes, both. Apparently not." There was a long pause on his end, after which he said, "Well, that's good enough for me, then. Thank you, darling. See you soon."

He pocketed the phone and turned to Tony and Bruce, who looked puzzled.

"Just wanted to verify that you really had spoken with my people. Now that we're all on the same page, I can tell you a few things about our operation.

"I know that the fragment in our facility in London emitting that radiation is believed to have come from an artifact we called the Cube, which some refer to as Odin's tesseract."

He looked from Bruce to Tony and back. "You don't look at all surprised."

"Well, I was pretty sure of the nature of the substance at the lab," said Bruce apologetically. "Tony's just got a really good poker face."

"How did you know the - substance belonged to Howard?" asked Falsworth.

"The radiation signature," said Bruce. "There are only three other sources, to my knowledge, that emit similar readings. One's implanted in Tony's chest, and the other two are - well, classified."

"I didn't think anyone knew about Howard's sample, not any more," Falsworth told them. "Rogers brought it back from Schmidt's factory. Howard conducted some experiments on it during the War - but once he found the larger artifact in the ocean, no one bothered about the - "

"Wait a minute," said Tony. " _Howard_ found the tesseract? Why didn't I know that?"

Falsworth sighed again and went back to sit down.

"He was looking for Rogers' crash site," he elaborated. "Along the way, he found the Cube, though he didn't know of its origins, not then. None of us had ever seen such a thing. It wasn't until later that Schmidt's pet scientist gave up some information about it.

"Howard turned the cube over to the SSR once he realized that it was too dangerous even for him to be tinkering with it. He regretted that decision later, said he should have left it at the bottom of the ocean, that in the wrong hands it would destroy the world. Look what Schmidt almost did, he said."

"He's not the only one, either," Tony muttered. "So the SSR locked up the Cube?"

"It was rather anticlimactic. Howard had hoped that he could form a group to study it - he and some others supported the creation of SHIELD with that in mind - but ultimately, the SSR became a mere subsidiary of SHIELD, and SHIELD became a behemoth of what you Americans call the military-industrial complex."

"Present company included," said Tony. "So he gave up on studying the tesseract energy and focused on conventional weaponry?"

"It would seem so. I know of his work on the Manhattan Project, and I also know that he destroyed nearly all his research on the Cube. I don't know why."

"I do," Tony replied. "The short version is that he collaborated with a Russian scientist who was more after the money than the science; the Russian was deported and Dad decided it wasn't the right time for his research. He didn't have the means to synthesize the element."

"Do you know what became of the tesseract?" Falsworth asked him, point-blank.

"I do," Tony replied. "But we're not allowed to say."

"It's no longer on Earth," Bruce offered. "It's been returned to its place of origin."

"Hmm," said the old man, eyeing them both. "Someday I should like to hear that story. Perhaps over a pint. In conclusion, I can tell you that the sample has been dormant for many years, in long-term storage at our facility. Several months ago, we ran a routine check on it and noticed slightly elevated levels of gamma radiation, still too low to be worrisome. Then, the day of the attack on New York, one of our scientists noticed some unusual activity in - another experimental process, which seemed to indicate that the sample had become active in some way."

He looked at them. "Truth be told, Dr. Banner, if you know anything about the stuff, we could use your help. But only if I can be sure that any of our data doesn't fall into the hands of SHIELD."

Bruce laughed shortly.

"I guarantee you, Lord Falsworth," he said, "neither of us has any loyalty at all to SHIELD."


	12. Chapter 12

"Well," said Marianne as she hung up the phone. "It's highly likely that Mr. Stark now knows about the fragment. I'm sure Uncle James will fill me in on their conversation later."

"I'll be interested to know what else Mr. Stark has discovered," Peggy commented. “Probably a few things even you and Max don’t know. I’m going to have a walk before tea, are you coming?”

“I want to go over Banner’s theory again. You go on.”

Peggy was permitted access to the gardens; they were surrounded by tall stone walls and not overlooked by any other building. She sought out her favorite seat and let her mind wander at will and, as before, it went directly to wondering about Steve Rogers.

Obviously Steve knew Tony Stark, however casually; they had fought together. She hadn’t been able to find anything about Captain America apart from the press releases given out by SHIELD. They painted him as a highly trained, physically enhanced soldier with a gift for strategy and ‘experience with unconventional forms of warfare’. Peggy had snorted at that. She supposed they wanted to reassure the public that he could handle flying alien creatures, but honestly, his tactics were probably right out of the 1940s. The Commandos would have been proud.

Come to think of it, she wondered which of them might still be alive, apart from James. Had they seen the news footage as well? Had they recognized Captain Rogers? Did he know the fate of his old comrades? She made a mental note to ask James when next they met.

What had anyone told Steve about herself? What was the ‘official story’ about Peggy Carter?

*

“So the official story about Peggy Carter, according to SHIELD, is that she's retired and living in Winchester,” said Tony to Bruce, that evening. “Falsworth thinks she went missing while undercover, which is interesting in that the British Army doesn’t list her as missing – in fact, their records show her as retired also, with no known address. Hmm.”

“Your dad’s handwriting was even worse than yours,” Bruce muttered. He was sifting through some files they’d brought up from the cellar; he pulled out a sealed envelope and studied it. “No markings at all. Should I be worried about anthrax or some other booby trap, here?”

Tony rolled his eyes and took the folder from Bruce. “Dad was sneaky, but not mean,” he said, running his fingers over the envelope. “Feels like another envelope inside this one. An enigma wrapped in a mystery? Let’s see.”

He tore the envelope open and something fell out – a square paper sleeve with something flat and black inside. There were no markings on either item. Bruce stared from Tony to the sleeve and back and said, “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you’re thinking it’s an eight inch floppy disk, you’re correct,” said Tony.

“Nobody uses those any more – do they?”

“Not that I know of, and that’s saying a lot.” Tony took the disk out and turned it over carefully. “Pristine condition. No markings.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything that will read this,” Bruce said dubiously.

“There is such a thing as a hardware emulator, but the one I built is back in Malibu.”

JARVIS spoke up.

“Excuse me, sir. I believe the National Museum of Computing has working models of various types of computer hardware, dating as far back as the 1940s.”

“National Museum of Computing? Please tell me that’s a British institution, JARVIS.”

“It is located in Buckinghamshire, sir.” JARVIS brought up a map on Tony’s tablet. “Open to the public Thursdays and Saturdays; at other times an appointment must be made.”

“Well, let’s make one!” Tony rubbed his hands in glee, then very carefully put the disk back in its envelope.

“For all we know, that thing is blank, or degraded,” Bruce warned. Tony was undaunted.

“Always look on the bright side, doc.”

*

The next day, after Tony had spent an hour on the telephone with the museum people (and pledged a generous donation), he was pacing the floor and checking his watch.

“We could make it there and back before lunch,” he said.

“True,” said Bruce. “Especially the way you drive. But you know that once you’re there you’ll lose track of time and spend the day nose down on a scent.”

“Are you comparing me to a dog?” Tony grinned. “You know me too well. What’s the agenda for today, anyway? Now that we’ve talked to Falsworth, we know the cube fragment is there, and we know how it got there…”

“It’s my turn to have my nose down,” Bruce smiled. “We still don’t know what it’s doing there. Or why it was activated, or what it’s been powering. I want to know what they plan to do with the thing – we’ve already seen how dangerous this element can be.”

“You can say that again. You should see my workshop.”

He was looking out the window when a taxi drove up and their guests emerged. Max Newman, Lee Hodges, Peggy Carter, and a younger woman whom Tony didn’t recognize. He went down and greeted them warmly and was introduced to Dr. Marianne Falsworth.

“Aha, you must be James’ inside source,” said Tony.

“I am,” she said amiably. “His niece, to be exact. You’ve met Ms. Carter, I believe.”

“Always a pleasure,” said Tony. “Shall we repair to the dining room?”

Though the house was old, Tony’s lifestyle was casual; there were no regular servants other than the housekeeper and chef, and he and his guests served themselves and chatted while they ate. The conversation did not turn to science until the dishes were cleared, and as previously agreed, Bruce engaged Hodges and Newman in the dining room while Tony gave the other two a tour of the house.

“I’ve passed by this place many a time,” said Marianne. “Always wondered what the inside was like.”

“Standard issue English townhouse,” Tony said. “Complete with wrought-iron fence and a dumb-waiter. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t always stick to modern forms. Here’s the den – vintage furniture, modern mess.”

His papers and other detritus were scattered over the desk, rug, and chairs.

“Genius at work,” said Peggy dryly. “I’ve known a few scientists; this doesn’t shock me at all.”

“I bet you have,” said Tony under his breath. “Let’s go through to the library.”

Howard Stark had kept his scientific tomes in his den; the main library was stocked with an eclectic collection of fantasy novels, biographies, classic literature, and a small but choice clump of erotica on a high shelf. Tony watched Peggy and was amused to see her eye go directly to that shelf and a smile flicker across her lips.

“I love the smell of a library,” said Marianne, studying the titles of the books. “You don’t come here very often, do you?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t see anything here published later than 1960. And it looks like nothing’s been disturbed for some time. Shame on you, Mr. Stark.”

"E-books. It's all online now." Tony just grinned and led the way out into the corridor. “Here’s something I had put in since my dad’s day,” he said, opening a narrow door and turning on the light. “One at a time, ladies, it’s pretty cramped in there.”

Peggy went in and looked around. “There’s a screen, and a chair,” she reported to Marianne. “Can’t tell where the light comes from. And the walls are the most appallingly anonymous shade – something between ecru and bone.”

“What is it?” Marianne asked Tony.

“It’s a phone booth. Box,” he corrected himself. “I can make calls without giving away my location – no visual clues, and the sound has been dampened.”

“Visual clues…" Peggy said as she came out of the room. "You mean you can see the person you’re phoning?”

“Sure,” Tony replied. He made a mental note of her surprise but said nothing more, so they went back to the dining room to rejoin the others.

Bruce had been right; food (and drink) had mellowed the atmosphere. Hodges was willing to allow him access to the area where the fragment was housed, and Newman was picking Bruce’s brain about its composition.

When they were ready to depart, Marianne looked around for Peggy, who had disappeared unnoticed.

“Probably looking for the loo,” said Marianne. “I’ll – “

“I’ll go find her,” said Tony. “She probably got lost.”

He was out of the room and up the stairs in a flash, back to the den and the mess. And Peggy, leaning in the open doorway, looking at the room with an odd expression.

“Please don’t tell me you have an urge to tidy it up,” said Tony. “I know exactly where to find what I want.”

“I wouldn’t touch it,” she said, startled. “It’s just – this place, the whole house, reminds me of someone I once knew.”

She smiled a bit sadly and turned away before Tony could bring himself to ask who that might be.


	13. Chapter 13

"Why do I think that Howard's secret project and Peggy Carter are one and the same thing?" Bruce mused, watching the taxi pull away.

"And here I thought you were only here for SCIENCE," Tony teased him, but he was also gazing after their departing guests.

"If the science exists for the purpose of helping people, then that's what I'm here for," said Bruce.

When Tony paced, he frequently used an entire floor, and Bruce had become used to watching him wander from room to room. This time, when Tony walked slowly out the door, Bruce trailed along behind.

"Howard knew that stuff could be used to create weapons," Tony said. "When Vanko got out of hand, that's when Howard took his research underground. Is that the only reason? What other reason could there be? Was SHIELD getting bossy? What does this project entail that was so precious to him?"

He stopped abruptly and turned to Bruce in the middle of the library.

"Precious to him," Tony repeated slowly. "Not the fragment. The people. The person."

"You think Howard was in love with Peggy?" Bruce asked.

"Can't rule it out," said Tony. "But in that case, why would he consent to put her under for seventy years? Why not pop the question?"

"Maybe she wasn't interested."

"From what I hear - and actually, from personal experience, I know - Howard was a difficult man to say no to."

"Maybe she was in love with someone else," Bruce pointed out. "Someone like - Steve Rogers."

Tony stared at his friend.

"The way he was looking at her, in the picture," he said, nodding. "You think maybe she was sweet on him after all? I bet Steve knows more than he's let on..."

"Tony, promise me you're not going to run off and call Steve."

"What? Why not?"

"You want science? I'll give you science." Bruce stopped Tony with a hand on his arm. "First off, you haven't verified your findings. For all we know, that woman is a clone, or someone surgically altered to look like Peggy. And you don't really want to spill the beans to Steve, only to have to tell him later that you were wrong - do you?"

Tony shook his head, but he was still pouting.

"Secondly, even if she is Peggy Carter, the original, we don't know what her agenda is, if any. Or Howard's, for that matter."

"What kind of agenda would she have? You're as paranoid as he was, Bruce."

"It's a gift," said Bruce, grimly. "I can imagine all kinds of ways a human could be used as a weapon."

Chastened, Tony shut his mouth on whatever he was going to say next. Bruce nodded in approval.

"Slow but steady wins the race, right? We'll see what Howard tells us on that disk, tomorrow. Now that your presence is known, can we go out somewhere without having to skulk? I want to see the Eye."

*

"I can't say it's an improvement," was Peggy's remark. She and Marianne were in the latter's car, tooling around the sights of twenty-first century London, and Peggy was squinting up at the giant Ferris wheel. "But then, anything's better than searchlights and barrage balloons."

"We should take Uncle James round next time," said Marianne. "He'll know both the old landmarks and the new ones. I wonder how Howard Stark planned to bring you into the new world once you'd been revived. Did you ever discuss it with him?"

"Oh, we discussed it, quite a bit," said Peggy. "For better or worse, Howard was a fan of comics, especially the science fiction varieties. I had to keep reminding him that this was reality and what if he never managed to get that car to fly?"

She laughed, remembering. "What it came down to was that people were people, and a mere forty years wasn't going to change that fact too much for me to handle. He said that the only things that changed rapidly were inventions, technology, gadgets - that humans were of a design that took hundreds or thousands of years to change. I was rather counting on that."

"At least you had more preparation than Steve Rogers," said Marianne. "Wonder how he's doing."

Dr. Hodges came to visit Peggy that evening. After a few polite inquiries about her health and her outing, she asked Peggy bluntly whether she meant to contact Steve Rogers.

"I don't see how that's any of your business," Peggy replied evenly.

"But it is. Contacting Captain Rogers will alert SHIELD to your existence, and to ours. I know you haven't been involved in this project in an active way, but let me tell you, once they know about it they'll roll right over us, take all our research and resources, and leave us with nothing."

"You talk as though SHIELD were the enemy."

"When it comes to research, at the individual level, they are," said Hodges passionately. "What you haven't read in the news feeds is that everything that touches on the Avengers and their origins has been directed by SHIELD, in some cases confiscated. The science that originally brought Thor to Earth was part of a very small but dedicated research project led by Dr. Jane Foster, who's now been shuffled off to some outpost in Norway. Dr. Banner - well, you may not know this, but Bruce Banner is the human form of the creature they call the Hulk. Another experiment gone wrong, and not improved by its acquisition by the U.S. government."

"Next you'll be telling me that Mr. Stark is under their spell, or some such thing," Peggy retorted. "And that because they found and revived Steve Rogers, he's now their property. By that logic, I would belong to your organization, which doesn't resemble the SSR I remember; we never trafficked in the casual appropriation of a human's rights."

Hodges said, "He might as well be their property. He lives in an apartment paid for by SHIELD, he reports to Director Fury himself - "

"Even a soldier may make some choices," Peggy argued. "Down to the lowest private. Some things even one's commanding officer cannot take away."

"Within reason," Hodges replied. "Consider ours a covert operation, Miss Carter. One with no clear end date."

She sighed, and then her tone softened.

"What did you and Stark expect would happen once you were brought back from the dead?" she asked.

"Howard gave me to understand that he'd leave detailed instructions, in the event of his demise, as to how and when I would be revived," said Peggy. "I've already been told how that went wrong, but not why. It seems strange that between 1949 and 1991 he didn't leave any information about this project with anyone."

She turned to look Hodges in the eye. "So, seeing as we haven't anything of value for SHIELD to 'steal', why not lay our cards on the table? At least to those two inquisitive scientists? Perhaps they can help us."

"We have the fragment, and the apparatus it was running."

"If what Stark says is true, he can fabricate the stuff the fragment is made of. And the apparatus has shut down, hasn't it? Just as inexplicably as it ran."

Hodges' expression was speculative; Peggy felt she might have made some inroads in the doctor's attitude.

"There's you," Hodges said at last. "They might try to take you in. Like they did to Steve Rogers, among others."

"Nobody knew about Steve when they revived him," Peggy said. "It was easy for them to cover up their discovery, and his identity. As for me, we have some control over how and to whom my situation is revealed. SHIELD can't keep me or this project secret, if we go public enough with it."

"What did you have in mind?" the doctor asked skeptically.


	14. Chapter 14

James Falsworth was preparing to retire when a call rang through to his private sitting room.

"Hello, Falsworth here. Who's calling?"

"Falsworth," said a man's voice. A young man, American accent. "James Falsworth? Of the Howling Commandos?"

"The same," James replied. "Rogers, is that you? Good God, man, I can't believe it."

"Neither can I," said Steve, and James could hear the grin in his friend's voice. "Damn, it's good to hear your voice."

"It's rather well-worn by now. You sound exactly the same, of course. I imagine you look the same - I saw the news footage, you know."

"Yeah, well." Steve sounded mildly embarrassed. He always had done, when his accomplishments were pointed out. "I had a great team. You could tell it was me?"

"I could. I'm not sure anyone else could have - Morita's the only other fellow alive from the Howlers and he's blind as a bat. Still has the hearing of same, though."

They chatted for a bit about the Commandos, other old friends, and eventually James had to beg off.

"I don't sleep much," he said apologetically, "but if I don't get an early jump on it I'll be up all night. So glad you took Stark's hint, though, and picked up the phone."

"Stark's hint? Tony Stark?"

"Yes, he was here a few days ago. Didn't he mention it?"

"I didn't know he was even in England," said Steve, sounding puzzled. "What's he doing there, I wonder?"

"No idea," said James, not entirely truthfully.

***

"Mr. Stark, I have a message for you from Captain Rogers."

Tony had just come in from an extensive investigation into the pubs in the area. Bruce had found one he liked, stayed put, and had not yet returned.

"It isn't a call to 'assemble', is it, J?"

"No, sir, but it is related to your visit to James Falsworth."

"Uh oh," said Tony, flinging his coat on the floor of his study. "Am I in trouble?"

"Most likely, sir, but apparently not with Captain Rogers."

"Put it on."

Out of the speakers of Tony's sound system flowed the dulcet tones of Steve Rogers, fearless leader and man out of time.

"Tony, it's Steve Rogers. I was just talking to an old friend of mine, James Falsworth, and he says you came to see him a few days ago...I was just wondering, well, why? If it's none of my business just say so and I'll butt out. If it has anything to do with the war, or the Commandos, maybe I can help. Thanks."

"He's getting better at the voicemail thing," said Tony. He dropped into an armchair and asked, "What time is it in New York, JARVIS?"

"Six thirteen in the evening, sir. Shall I place a call to Captain Rogers?"

"Please do."

He'd barely had time to kick off his shoes before he heard Steve's voice.

"Tony, it's me, Steve. Are you there?"

"More or less. How are things on your side of the pond?"

"Good, as far as I know. You got my message, I take it."

"You take it correctly. I did visit your old chum Falsworth; we had a lovely chat about Howard, of all people."

"Howard - ? Howard Stark?" Steve sounded puzzled.

"The one and only. I would have called you, but I needed information on Howard's activities after your crash, and before I was born. Long story short, I found Falsworth by following a lead about that element I cooked up in my workshop."

"Really? I don't remember him being much of a scientist. Though I hear he sponsors cancer research now."

"Yeah, he funds a clinic in London."

"Tony," said Steve, sounding alarmed. "You're not - you don't have - "

"No, no," Tony assured him. "I'm not seeking treatment. You know me, I'm just nosy. There are several reasons why I'm interested in Falsworth and his clinic, but I won't bore you with them. While I have you on the line, though, can I ask you something? About the good old days, when you and Lord F were both young?"

His flippant tone masked a mild misgiving for the can of worms he was about to open.

"Go ahead," Steve replied easily.

"Does the name Peggy Carter mean anything to you?"

He heard Steve suck in his breath, then nothing for at least a minute. He was about to ask JARVIS to check Steve's vital signs when his friend spoke up.

"Yes," he said shortly. "Why do you want to know?"

"Well, I'm guessing that SHIELD gave you some information about your old chums from the SSR, their status, whereabouts, that sort of thing, right? Falsworth was kind of miffed at you for not calling, by the way."

"I have files on some of the people I served with," Steve said. "Including Peggy Carter. She was an agent, overseeing the 'super-soldier' project. The file says she's...retired..."

"That's weird, Cap, because you know what? Falsworth says she went missing on some covert op after the war."

"So someone got their reports wrong. What's your point, Tony?"

"Have you tried contacting her, Steve?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business, Stark." Steve sounded really angry now. Tony couldn't blame him.

"It might be yours," he said. "A few days ago I met a woman named Peggy Carter, who looks exactly like a woman in a photo I found in my dad's odds and ends. A photo taken before your ill-fated flight, with Howard and you and Falsworth and a few others - and according to my research, Peggy Carter. Hey JARVIS, would you transmit a copy of that photo to Steve's computer?"

Tony waited while Steve sat down at his desk and opened the file.

"I remember that," Steve said after a long silence. "Howard, Bucky and I were out looking for a decent hamburger - we ran into Dum Dum and Gabe on the same hunt, and afterward we went to the Rose and Crown, that was Falsworth's favorite pub. I don't remember who took the picture, but it was on our way back and everyone was kind of tipsy. Well, except me."

"Sounds like a party."

"Even in the middle of a war, once in a while there were times like this," said Steve, then he laughed. "A couple days later, I was there with the Commandos and Peggy showed up with a message from Howard; guess she knew where to find us."

He fell silent again. Tony almost hated to interrupt his memories. Almost.

"So that's Peggy Carter, as you knew her in, what, 1944?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I'm going to show you a picture that was taken a couple of days ago, here in Howard's old house where I'm staying. JARVIS - show him the one from the phone booth."

What JARVIS showed Steve was a photo taken surreptitiously while Peggy was in Tony's nondescript communications room; she was facing the inactive viewscreen and the image was well-lit and crystal clear.

Through the phone line, Tony heard a sharp sound, like a chair being knocked over.

"Steve? Everything okay there?"

Tony waited, and finally Steve said, "If this is some kind of twisted prank, I swear, Stark, I will wring your neck, genius or no genius."

"And I'd deserve it," said Tony. "But I'm not. That woman's name is Peggy Carter, I met her at the clinic in London. They said she was involved in a long term study of some kind. A few of their scientists came here for lunch one day and she tagged along. By then JARVIS had I.D.'d her in Howard's photo and I wanted to see how close the resemblance was."

"It's perfect," Steve muttered. "It's Peggy, it has to be. I don't understand."

"Neither do I, for a change," Tony said. "She's part of a bigger mystery Bruce and I are looking into, and I don't want the mystery-makers spooked by our sudden interest in her. Can you keep this to yourself, at least for now?"

"Nobody would believe me anyway," Steve snorted. "Just - tell me, will you, as soon as you think it's advisable, for me to call her."

Tony could picture Steve waiting by the phone, literally. He would, too, if it had been Pepper on the other end of the line.

"Steve - "

"Yeah, Tony."

"You might want to pack a bag. I do own a jet, remember?"


	15. Chapter 15

"This is it," said Tony. "This is the key, the Rosetta Stone. The index."

He sounded stunned. The only other person in the room was Bruce, who was willing to wait for Tony to put his thoughts into complete sentences. There were two of the museum staff loitering outside the room, with a view through the lab window just to make sure there was no harm done to the 'relics' as Tony called them.

"Why the hell would he bury this so deep? How did he expect anyone to find it?" Tony's eyes were glued to the black and green screen. "Let alone read it...well, okay, in 1991 it would be more likely...But leaving it in a damn box in a dark corner? Howard, what the hell..."

More muttering followed, as did some tapping of keys and scratching of the head. At last Tony threw down the pen he'd been fidgeting with and turned to look at Bruce.

"This disk," he said, slowly and deliberately, "contains not only information about this," he tapped the metal circle under his shirt, "but also data on the tesseract itself, a log from his search for Steve, and a series of codes that tell where to find his hidden files."

"As in, paper files?"

Tony nodded, a bit grimly. "God only knows what would have happened if that old townhouse had gone up in flames," he said. Getting up, he opened the door of the lab and asked, "Is there a way I can print from this device?"

There was; Tony made a note to track down and donate as much pin-fed printer paper as was humanly possible, as his own printout made a respectable pile. He and Bruce thanked the staff profusely and made their exit with the original disk and the paper printout.

Back at the house, Tony went straight to the dining room and planted the pile of paper on the table, collected pencils, paper, and his tablet, and hunkered down to process the information. After about half an hour, Bruce stuck his head in the door and said, "Hey, I'm going out for a bit, need anything?"

"I'm good," said his friend, waving vaguely without taking his eyes off the readout. "Call if you need bail, or whatever they call it here."

Bruce grinned. He took one of the cars from Tony's garage and ended up at Falsworth Manor once more. It was just after lunchtime and he hoped that the master of the house wasn't one for an afternoon nap.

As it turned out, he was not. Bruce had declined to be shown anywhere and was drifting here and there in the foyer, admiring the art and architecture, when Falsworth came up beside him and said, "The stately homes of England, eh? Is that why you're here, Dr. Banner?"

"No," said Bruce, shaking the man's hand. "I wonder if we could have a chat. Sit, or walk, whatever you like."

"A chat, about what?"

"Whom, rather. Steve Rogers."

The older man turned and led the way out into the garden. He and Bruce walked slowly and in silence for a while; then Falsworth asked, "How well do you know Steve Rogers?"

Bruce shrugged. "He's a friend. He trusted me when a lot of other people didn't. I don't know him as well as I do Tony, but then Steve's a soldier, not a scientist; we have less in common."

"When I first met him, he was a complete virgin," said Falsworth, then laughed when Bruce looked amused. "I mean a combat virgin. The only battlefield he'd ever seen was from a distance, on his way through Europe with the USO. Now, I don't know whether this is declassified and I don't care - I'm going to tell you, and you can share it with Stark for what it's worth.

"Rogers walked into a HYDRA prison camp, knocked out several guards, nicked a sample of what they were making there, and came looking for the prisoners. He'd come for Barnes - you know who that was? - but he gave us a few quick orders and disappeared into the infirmary wing.

"Well, what the world knows is that Rogers freed hundreds of prisoners, brought us all back alive, though some in dreadful condition, along with a couple of HYDRA tanks and several of their rather bizarre weapons. There were others among us who could have taken command, myself included, but there was something about Rogers that gave off an air of complete confidence and calm, a mind that was one step ahead of where we thought we were."

"He still does," said Bruce, remembering his initial introduction to Steve. "I think people underestimate him, write him off as a relic, but he's pretty good at adapting quickly, and his judgment is amazing."

"Just so. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Still, it would be wise for SHIELD to remember that he's still a young man - not yet thirty when we lost him - and a man with a long life ahead of him."

"And you don't want him to spend it as SHIELD's dog and pony show," Bruce guessed.

"He's had enough of that," said Falsworth. "Don't you think?"

Bruce looked down at his feet for a moment, then up at Falsworth.

"I think you should tell him about Peggy Carter," he said.

Falsworth's eyebrows went up. "And what do you suggest I tell him?"

"That she's alive. Through some improbable events, she's alive and still young, and that he has another chance with her, if he wants it."

"I told you," said Falsworth, but not convincingly, "she went missing. No one ever found a body. The story about her retirement was a ruse, I admit, but - "

"She went missing, all right - and ended up in London, at your clinic. What happened between 1949 and now I have no idea. But that is the original Peggy Carter, isn't it? Not just a woman with the same name, or a descendant, or a well-altered substitute. Not a scientist, either, or a patient."

This time it was Falsworth who was silent for some time. Then he stirred and said, "And if she is the Peggy Carter that Rogers once knew? The genuine article? What then?"

"Maybe you should ask her that. If she doesn't want anyone to know she's alive, that's her call, but if she does want to reveal herself, that's her call, too. Not yours, not your committee's."

"If it's any consolation, that's been my intention from the moment she awakened," said Falsworth. "It was all I could do to keep from picking the telephone and calling Rogers the first day. The only thing stopping me was the fact that we had no information as to how we should proceed. None of Stark's - Howard's - instructions or notes could be found."

"I think I can help you with that," said Bruce.


	16. Chapter 16

"Bruce! Where the hell have you been?"

Tony's voice, raised in a shout, was the first thing Bruce and Falsworth heard when they exited the lift on the townhouse's main floor. The two men exchanged eye rolls and proceeded without haste to the dining room where Bruce had last seen Tony.

Tony was still there, along with pages and piles of paper. He'd apparently split up the thick printout and placed it in sections all across the dining table; a few long segments were tacked to the walls. His handwriting was distributed liberally across the documents and his hair was standing on end as if he'd been pulling it.

"I figured you didn't need me for this process," said Bruce. "Except maybe as an audience. You remember James Falsworth."

"Huh? Yes - yes, I do, 'scuse my manners." Tony looked up at his visitor, grinned sheepishly and waved them both to sit down.

"Dr. Banner told me of the disk you'd found," said Falsworth. "He believes it's time for us all to lay our cards on the table, so to speak. I for one am weary of all the distrust and ignorance going around since Peggy came back, and I'm not as pessimistic as Dr. Hodges when it comes to SHIELD."

"And what cards are you laying down?" Tony asked skeptically.

"For one thing," said Falsworth, "I've known about Peggy since she went under, in 1949. The cancer clinic, though authentic and quite productive, was begun as a front for Howard's experiment with suspended animation. That much, I understand, you had already deduced."

"What I hadn't deduced - but which has since come to light - is how the unit works, how it's connected to the cube fragment, and how Howard planned to reactivate Peggy Carter," said Tony. "But not how or why it kicked in when the cube did. That's your department, Bruce."

"Well done," Falsworth remarked. "I assume that this bale of paper contains part of your deductions?"

"Mine, and Howard's," Tony replied. "Nearly all of this is raw data, which he stored in the basement of this house on a disk which, thank God, can still be read by at least one machine in the world. I'm just skimming it for now and setting aside most of it for further perusal, but..."

He trailed off, gazing over the cluttered table. "I got a lot of homework, as Pepper would say."

Falsworth and Bruce both chuckled. Falsworth's mobile rang in his pocket and he pulled it out.

"Falsworth here," he said. His eyes went sharply to Tony. "Yes, of course. In fact, I'm here now. Yes, both of them. I believe Mr. Stark has come across some - mementoes you might like to see." He listened for some time, nodding, then said, "I'm staying here for a few days - is there any chance you could come tomorrow? Tea perhaps?"

Tony and Bruce exchanged a look. "I invited him," said Bruce.

Tony shrugged. "The more the merrier."

Falsworth had concluded his call and put his phone away.

"That was Peggy," he told them. "She thinks she can manage to escape for a bit tomorrow. I couldn't be too specific - not sure who might be listening - I don't really think Hodges and I are on the same page when it comes to some aspects of this project."

He leaned forward, rubbing his hands in anticipation. "Now chaps, over here we have a saying - possession is nine-tenths of the law..."

\------->

"I really appreciate this," said Bruce Banner to Max Newman as they descended the private lift to the lower levels. "I just want to take a few measurements, see what kind of setup Stark put together."

"As long as you don't share the information with SHIELD," Newman cautioned him yet again. "I know it seems absurd, that they'd come after something this small, but - well, I've run afoul of their tactics before."

"Scout's honor," said Bruce (who had never been a scout, so he didn't feel held to it).

The lift stopped and they got out, Newman fishing a key out of his pocket. He used it to open a door in the otherwise bare hallway, ushering Bruce into a room that was chilly and dimly lit and smelling of antiseptic.

Built into one wall were several panels of controls and lights, now dark from disuse, and against the opposite wall was a large block of concrete and metal. Going toward it, Bruce saw that it had a small window near one end and several heavy cables running out of the other.

"What's this?" he asked casually. "Looks like a coffin."

"Part of another experiment that Stark abandoned," said Newman. "Here's what you came for."

He had unbolted a cabinet at the far end of the room and opened it, throwing a switch that lit only that section of the wall. The panels inside the cabinet had obviously been recently cleaned, including a pane of thick glass behind which a familiar blue glow emanated.

"Wow," said Bruce, with genuine respect. "And it's been here, the whole time?"

"We've never found it necessary to move it, or even to open the enclosure," said Newman. "It's just as well; the instruments it's been connected to are still perfectly calibrated and I wouldn't want to throw that off."

He showed Bruce the instruments and some readouts, and Bruce used a handheld device Tony had given him to take some of his own readings.

"It certainly seems stable," said Bruce at last. "What purpose is it serving at the moment?"

Newman cleared his throat. "I'm not at liberty to say," he replied. "It's safe here, and doing no harm. If Mr. Stark wants to take possession of it - "

"Oh, I don't think it'll come to that," Bruce assured him. "Tony's able to synthesize the element it's made of. At the most he might want to get periodic reports, like the readings I took today."

"That shouldn't be a problem," said Newman. He busied himself closing and locking the cabinet, and when he turned, Bruce was standing over the cement enclosure, gazing down at the small window at its head.

"What experiment was Stark using this for, do you know?" he asked casually.

"Something to do with - life support, I believe," Newman replied. "Early cryogenics. We have no record of anyone actually going through the procedure, let alone any notes Stark may have made."

"Too bad," said Bruce. "So much of his knowledge has been lost."


	17. Chapter 17

Later, Tony, Falsworth, and Bruce were having drinks in Tony's lair, discussing Bruce's findings and Peggy's upcoming visit.

Bruce had surreptitiously taken a picture of the cement enclosure and showed it to them. Tony was fascinated; Falsworth was oddly silent. When Bruce asked him for his thoughts, the old man stirred and spoke slowly.

"The last time I saw that - thing," he said, "it was the year Stark had decided to postpone reviving her. I admit, I went down to talk to her. I know that sounds mad."

Tony shook his head and Bruce murmured, "I've heard crazier."

"I tried to tell her that Howard knew what he was about, that we wouldn't let anything happen to her, even though HYDRA was still in existence, lurking like vermin in their holds. She was afraid, you see, that the project might fall into enemy hands and that she'd wake up a prisoner."

Tony thought about his father's fears. Maybe they weren't as unfounded as Tony had thought.

"So what convinced her to go ahead with it, then?" asked Bruce.

Falsworth shook his head. "The only one who knows that is the lady herself. I have my own ideas, but I'd rather not share them - don't you have some phrase like 'taking the fifth'?"

"Refusing to answer on the grounds that you might incriminate yourself," Tony rattled off. "I bet you know a lot about the SSR and Howard's science experiments. You don't mind if I ring you up just for confirmation, as I poke through his writings?"

"Not at all," Falsworth replied a bit smugly. "I'm sure we can find some way to make it worth my while."

They grinned at each other.

"So, you don't think Newman knows that we know about Peggy?" Tony asked Bruce, who shook his head.

"If he does, he's playing it very cool. Especially considering that the person who was recently in that sarcophagus is now living on the top floor of the lab."

"What?" Tony sat up.

"Falsworth told me," said Bruce. "His niece is the lead medical doctor on Peggy's case; Hodges runs the clinic."

"I don't think Hodges ever expected Peggy to wake up," Falsworth added. "I gather from Marianne that her superior is at a bit of a loss as to what to do about her, Peggy I mean."

"I don't see that Dr. Hodges needs to *do* anything," Bruce said quietly. "Experiment or not, it's up to Peggy, what she wants."

* * *

Peggy went down to the garden after breakfast the next morning, thinking about her recent conversation with Dr. Hodges.

"The project involving the cube fragment, and my subsequent revival, isn't what you're concerned about, is it?" Peggy had said. "You're worried that SHIELD might show up and confiscate your cancer research."

"Can you blame me?" asked Dr. Hodges. "To be perfectly frank, Ms. Carter, I don't know you, and I didn't know Howard Stark. I have a nodding acquaintance with Lord Falsworth. I signed on to run this clinic with full knowledge as to what we were hiding in the basement - only I, Dr. Newman, and Dr. Falsworth were privy to that information. What little we had. And I intend to go on with our research, regardless of any future actions by you, or by SHIELD."

"I understand that completely," Peggy assured her. "I said before that making my identity and status more public might be the best way to go - I think I've figured out a way to do it, without drawing attention to your facility.

"Listen! If I were to pop up in some other location, and the facility upstairs were repurposed or dismantled, the only thing of interest to SHIELD in this building would be the fragment."

"And we've never touched the damn thing," Hodges pointed out. "I don't know the first thing about it apart from the nature of its radiation emissions."

"But we know someone who knows *everything* about it," said Peggy. "Tony Stark. If anyone knows how to safely remove the fragment from its current location, he would."

* * *

Now, as she waited for Marianne to take her to Stark's home, Peggy wondered whether Hodges - or Stark - would consent to such a procedure, and how Stark might react to the knowledge of who she was. And even more important to her, what information would he pass on to Steve? He and Steve were, if not friends, on the same team. If Howard's own son hadn't known about this experiment, it stood to reason that no one else - besides James - had been told. Especially not Steve, whose connection with SHIELD was, to say the least, complicated.

Marianne came to stand before her, smiling.

"Ready for your outing?" she asked.

Peggy snorted. "Yes, mummy. Doesn't it bother you, having to traipse around after me whenever I go anywhere?"

"Not at all," Marianne replied. "You're excellent company, and a welcome change from research. And you may not have me tagging along so much, after today."

"Really?" said Peggy skeptically. "Care to explain why?"

"No," said her friend. "But you can trust me and Uncle James. We'll make sure it all goes the way it should - for you, anyway."

Peggy didn't find that very comforting.


	18. Chapter 18

They arrived at the Stark house, as before, and were shown into a large, comfortable room, the lounge, Peggy remembered. Not much had changed, apart from new curtains, and she felt right at home.

Tony and Bruce came into the room and exchanged greetings with Marianne and Peggy, and James entered a few minutes later and gave her a hug.

"Good to see you again, so soon," he told her as they sat down. "And I understand why you couldn't say much over the phone. Will you tell us now, or would you like to have tea and conversation first?"

He was teasing, just to annoy the Americans, thought Peggy. Tony looked impatient, so it was working.

"Well, I'll tell you *over* tea," she began. "How much disclosure is appropriate, James?"

"The full Monty, as it were, my dear. I have, as the Americans say, spilled my guts, and Tony and Bruce have some new information for you as well."

She looked at the other two men for a moment. If they were now 'Tony' and 'Bruce' to James, she supposed she could trust them. For now.

"Have you told them - about the experiment?" Peggy asked James, who nodded.

"We know who you are," said Tony quietly. "Not the details of how you got here - but we're working on that."

"Lord Falsworth - James - says that Drs. Hodges and Newman are aware of the purpose and result of the long-sleep experiment," Bruce added. "In short, Peggy Carter. They haven't said anything about it to either one of us. I wonder if they don't think it's relevant to our research, or if there's some other reason for keeping you under wraps."

"I believe there is another reason," Peggy said. "Hodges insists that if word of the experiment were to get out, SHIELD would shut down the clinic and confiscate their data."

"The clinic represents her life's work," said Marianne. "I imagine she thinks she'd lose all that."

"What have you learned about Howard's project?" Peggy turned to Tony.

"The short version is that he figured out a way to put you in suspension for forty years, used the cube fragment to power the experiment, but for some reason cut off any reference to himself in the records and, most mysteriously, ended up not reviving you on schedule." Tony looked closely at her, as if he could divine answers from her appearance. "I hope you can fill in some holes in that summary."

Tea was served at that point, while Tony, Bruce, and James brought her up to date, as succinctly as possible, on their findings and theories.

Bruce turned to Peggy when the conversation faded into thoughtful stares.

"Let me ask you - are *you* apprehensive about the possibility that SHIELD might take an interest in your situation?"

"Not apprehensive, per se," she said slowly. "But I have my own reasons for taking that risk. And I'd rather not discuss - "

"Steve Rogers?" Tony suggested.

Peggy looked over at him; he simply shrugged. "That photo I found. Wait, I didn't show it to you, I showed it to James - JARVIS, bring up that image, will you?"

"As you wish, sir," came a voice from the device on an end table. Peggy started and said, "What the devil is that?"

"JARVIS? You could call him my majordomo, I guess," said Tony. "He communicates through this tablet. Here, have a look."

"Agent Carter, I presume?" said a refined British voice. It seemed to come from a speaker in the device. Peggy tore her attention away from the disembodied assistant and gazed at the image on the screen.

"Oh, I do remember this," she exclaimed. "There you are, James, and Howard, and your usual ragtag group."

"And Steve," Tony prodded. "Who only has eyes for you. Who is now connected to SHIELD and who until recently knew nothing about your continued existence. Well, not the truth, anyway - he thinks you're an old lady, retired and living in Winchester."

"Of course," she murmured. She couldn't take her eyes off the photograph. "If you hadn't come looking for the fragment - I wonder - Wait. You said, until recently?"

Tony and Bruce exchanged looks, then Tony said, "I may or may not have let slip that there's a lady here in London who looks a lot like that picture."

"And what did he say to that?" asked Peggy guardedly.

"It's what he *didn't* say," Tony replied. "I have it on good authority that he not only was struck speechless when he saw - not that one, this one - " He tapped the screen and a picture of Peggy in the phone room appeared. " - but that he actually knocked over a piece of furniture when he realized he was probably looking at the Peggy Carter he once knew."

 _And loved_ , Peggy thought, but that wasn't her place to say. Instead she said mildly, "And what can we deduce from that, Mr. Stark?"

"Considering that he had a far less violent reaction to the news that old Falsworth was alive and eager to talk to him - no offense, my lord - I deduce that you mean more to Steve than just an old Army chum."

"Still, what does that have to do with my current situation?" she replied, sticking stubbornly to the immediate topic. "If Steve considers me such a close - friend, can't he be persuaded to keep our secret?"

"Even if he's determined to keep quiet about us, SHIELD is probably tracking his every move," James put in. 

"They dug him out of the ice," said Bruce. "They probably consider him a prized artifact, not a human with his own path. Finders keepers, you know."

Peggy recalled what Hodges had said about Bruce Banner and the Hulk, and what she'd read in the news about him.

"They followed you, didn't they," she said. "Once you fled America, SHIELD had their eyes on you all the while."

Bruce nodded. "I didn't realize it for a long time. In fact, not until they sent an agent to bring me in. It convinced me that hiding - or trying to - was no longer an option. Which means that as soon as you and Steve so much as talk on the phone, SHIELD will be on his trail, and yours."

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," she told him. "If I can draw SHIELD's attention away from Dr. Hodges and James' project - well, that's the whole point, isn't it?"

"Are you seriously proposing that we use you as a diversion?" Bruce frowned.

"Me, the fragment, whatever is available. Honestly, do you think SHIELD could reconstruct the long-sleep experiment from the remnants of a non-functioning lab? That's the one thing Howard wouldn't have stood for. He wanted this technology to be used constructively, not as an easy way to produce an army. He saw what happened to Erskine's vision once the doctor was killed - and Steve was the victim of the political machine that used him, until he proved himself on the battlefield."

She turned to Tony.

"Mr. Stark, I have faith that whatever you've unearthed in Howard's records, you have ways of keeping it away from anyone you feel isn't entitled to it - be it HYDRA, SHIELD, or the Girl Guides."

"You're damn right I do," said Tony.

"So if all they find is that cube fragment and my humble self, what harm can they do? Even if they confiscate the fragment, you said you can synthesize it. Unless there's something unique to that one piece of it."

"Not that I know of," Tony replied. "But then, I haven't had a good look at it. Maybe Bruce could get me in."

He raised his eyebrows at Bruce, who shrugged, but it was Marianne who spoke.

"I have a key card," she said. "I can get you into the building. I don't know whether I could access the downstairs lab, though - Dr. Newman always let me in, before."

"Sounds like a plan," said Tony, rubbing his hands together. "When shall we execute it?"


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last. Sorry for being such a tease. (No, I'm not. XD)

They decided to make a foray that evening and were discussing contingencies, when JARVIS' voice came discreetly from the tablet, which lay on a table next to Peggy.

"Sir, the Stark Industries helicopter has just touched down on the roof. Shall I direct our guest to your current location?"

"Please do. Hope you don't mind," Tony said to his human audience. "I wanted to get another opinion on this whole brouhaha."

"What the hell!" Marianne leapt from her seat. "You sneaky bastard. Did you let SHIELD in on this after all?"

Bruce laid his hand on her arm. "Just wait. You'll see - it'll be fine. Better than fine."

He had a half-concealed smile on his face; Falsworth looked expectant, but not surprised. Stark was practically dancing in his seat. Peggy racked her brain, trying to think who the visitor might be. When she heard quick footsteps in the hall, she rose from her seat, staring at the door.

When she heard a man calling, "Stark - are you in there? What's the - " she went pale.

The door opened to admit a tall young man in mufti, pink-cheeked, having obviously come in a rush, perhaps mildly annoyed. His eyes swept around the room as if taking in strategic details; then they met Peggy's eyes and stopped cold.

He looked exactly the same as the last day she'd seen him, right down to the look of amazement on his face right after she'd grabbed him and kissed him. She had a sudden feeling that he might be seeing that look on her own face at the moment.

He came quickly over to her, blind to everything else in the room, and she took a step forward to meet him.

"Peggy," he whispered. "Oh my God, Peggy."

He pulled her into his arms, solid, breathing, warm, and she curled into his chest and felt his heart hammering under her cheek.

"It's true, then," she said inanely. "They did find you."

Keeping hold of Steve's arms, she pulled back to look at him.

"This is really you, Steven Rogers, isn't it? It isn't some kind of - trick?"

His grin flashed, even brighter than she remembered.

"Remember my first mission? The one where Howard dropped me out of the sky? I was whining about wearing tights, and you asked me if my only options were to be a lab rat or a dancing monkey."

She laughed shakily. "And when I told you you couldn't give me orders, you said, 'The hell I can't! I'm a Captain!'"

"So do I pass?" he asked.

"Oh, Lord, yes," she replied fervently. She wrapped her arms around his neck, laid her cheek against his, and never wanted to let go. 

Tony's voice broke into their reunion.

"So, are you gonna kiss her or what?"

"Um," said Steve, looking at Peggy. "I'll let you know."

"You're blushing," she whispered. "Some things never change."

Fortunately for Steve, he glanced over and spotted Falsworth rising from his chair. 

"Falsworth, holy - you look great," said the younger man. He went over to give Falsworth a quick one-armed hug, not letting go of Peggy's hand. Not that she would have let go of his, anyway.

"Dr. Marianne Falsworth, my niece, Captain Steve Rogers," Falsworth said.

"Doctor," said Steve, shaking her hand as well.

Bruce was speaking now.

"Tony, if you're ready - "

"As I'll ever be," said his friend.

"Where are you headed?" asked Steve.

"We're off to, um, draw SHIELD's fire," said Bruce. "The less you know about it, the better."

He left the room, followed closely by Marianne, and Tony hung back for a moment, looking at Steve.

"So, no kiss - ?"

"Go away, Tony," said Steve.

Tony did.

"Think I'll take a turn in the garden," James said with a smile. "We'll catch up later, Rogers."

Once James had wandered out of the room, Steve looked down at Peggy and said, "I have a million questions."

"So do I," she replied. "Shall we all talk at once, or take turns?"

Her attempt at keeping the conversation light was doomed to fail, she could tell. Steve's eyes were riveted to hers, as though he were searching for something in her expression. Flights of fancy, thought Peggy. He doesn't even remember that kiss - even if he does, it was typical maudlin wartime swooning, the sort I'd never indulge in. Get a backbone, Carter.

In the midst of her stern lecture to herself, she didn't notice that Steve was leaning closer, looking determined and yet still unsure, and when Peggy tipped her chin up to meet his gaze, she felt his lips brush against hers. And she was lost.

Later she would replay that kiss in her mind: the sensation of his mouth, soft and gentle, his arm around her waist and his hand at the back of her head as he stooped a little to kiss her. Her own arms were around Steve's neck and she stood on tiptoe, knowing he'd never let her fall. 

There were no furtive hands, no invading tongues, no compromising positions, and yet when they parted for breath Peggy felt rather giddy and Steve looked like he'd run a marathon.

"Steve," she said softly, laying her hands on his face. To her surprise, he shook his head.

"If you're going to let me down easy, tell me that you left someone back there in the past, someone you loved, and that - that you don't want to have that dance, after all - " Steve drew a deep breath and said, more evenly, "I'll leave you alone, I swear, and I won't - try anything, ever again. Just - don't tell me, yet, okay?"

For once, Peggy was at a loss for words, so she expressed herself by lunging into another embrace, this time tugging on the hair at the back of his neck and pressing the length of her body against his, letting her lips open under his and just getting a taste of his mouth - 

\- when she heard a voice and footsteps coming down the hallway. It was James, talking to someone on the phone and getting closer.

"I'm glad of the opportunity to speak with you at last, Director," James was saying. "JARVIS tells me you've been trying to reach Mr. Stark. - Yes, he went out perhaps fifteen minutes ago. - I'm afraid not. - Captain who? Rogers? Oh yes, Steve. No, I haven't - he did call me a few days ago. Haven't heard a peep. Well, I'm just here to jaw over old memories with Howard's son, you know..."

Falsworth passed the open door of the lounge, keeping up the chit chat and winking at Steve and Peggy, who had separated and were looking warily around. Once he'd wandered away, Peggy grabbed Steve's hand and said, "Come on. The library - no one ever goes there."


	20. Chapter 20

Marianne pulled her car into the alley behind the clinic and shut off the engine. The sun had set but there was enough light to walk without stumbling.

"I can get you inside," she said quietly to her passengers. "Dr. Banner knows where the item is housed - but I don't have a key card for the lab, or even for the lift."

"I have yet to meet the electronics I can't override," Tony said confidently. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"I still think we should just go to Dr. Newman and ask for it," said Bruce. "This skulking around seems - unnecessary."

"Look at it this way - Newman and Hodges will be able to say truthfully, if anyone asks, that they have no idea where the fragment is," Tony told him.

"Besides, what if they said no?" asked Marianne. "I know them both better than you. Hodges wouldn't mind being rid of the thing, but Dr. Newman - well, he's a bit obsessed with it."

"Point taken," said Bruce.

"Sounds like Howard," grumbled Tony.

Marianne disarmed the alarm keypad with her usual code and a swipe of her card.

"Their log will show that you were here," said Bruce. "Hope you don't get in too much trouble for it."

Marianne smiled. "We'll talk about that later. Here's the lift."

Once it looked like Tony was really going to be able to hot-wire the lift, the other two turned their backs on him, keeping an eye on the hallway, and when the doors opened, Tony and Marianne stepped in; Bruce hesitated.

"Claustrophobic?" asked Marianne sympathetically, but Bruce shook his head.

"It's not that simple." He looked around halfheartedly. "Don't suppose there are stairs."

"Come on," Tony urged him. "I need you down there, I can't do this without you."

"If the lift gets stuck - "

"It won't," said Tony firmly. "It wouldn't dare. And you can always rip your way out of it, right? Come on, big guy, clock's ticking."

Marianne was looking from one man to the other, obviously unaware of Bruce's alter ego. She looked relieved when Bruce finally stepped inside the lift and the doors closed.

"You get to pay for property damages," he muttered to Tony, who grinned.

"If any," he said.

* * *

The sun had set, and there was the muffled sound of dinner being prepared somewhere in the house; Peggy and Steve might have been miles away in the secluded library. Steve was sitting on the sofa with Peggy beside him, his arm around her, his hand in hers.

"I don't want you out of my sight," he had murmured after a long period of embraces and kisses. "I thought waking up seventy years later was unbelievable - this seems even more crazy."

Peggy kissed him again, to reassure him she was real (she told herself), and said, "Tell me what happened after the plane went down."

"Not much to tell. I lost consciousness - not from the impact, from - I tried to get out, I knew the plane was sinking into the ice, so I grabbed my shield, but the floor slid out from under me - " He took a deep breath, his eyes unfocused, remembering. "I fell back toward the nose and the fuselage cracked - there was ice, and water, and I think I hit my head."

He was silent for a moment, then he looked down at her with sorrowful eyes.

"It was probably a blessing," he went on softly. "There are worse ways to go."

"I know," said Peggy. They were both soldiers and they'd seen the worst - something she was glad, in a way, that they shared.

"Anyway, next thing I know I'm in a metal hut somewhere with generators and machines and people talking around me," he said. "Then I was out again, for a long time, until I woke up in New York City in a fake recovery room that was supposed to look like 1944. Met Nick Fury - you know who that is?"

"I've heard. SHIELD sounds like the headstrong offspring of the SSR."

"You got that right, I think," said Steve ruefully. "And the rest, like they say, is history. You saw the film from Manhattan?"

"Bits and pieces. I'm going to want to hear about it from you some time. Enough to know that you were alive, and that Howard was dead and hadn't brought me back when he meant to. I was just trying to figure out the best way to pop back into your life when you showed up this afternoon."

Steve grinned and pulled her close.

"I guess Tony decided to cut to the chase," he said. "His driver, Hogan, showed up at my place yesterday and offered me a ride to the airport, and when I got there he gave me a message from Tony. Got on his private jet, and here I am. And here you are."

Peggy was skeptical as to Stark's motives - how could he know of the affection Peggy and Steve had danced around so long ago? - but she pushed that aside in favor of the question Steve asked her now.

"And how *are* you here? I mean, I'm really, really glad you are, but how?"

"Well, I still don't much about the science," Peggy told him thoughtfully. "You know Howard and his Vita-Rays. Even with the serum unavailable he had ideas about how the Vita-Rays could be used for healing, and other things."

"Prolonging life?"

"For one," she said. She was remembering how she'd argued with Howard over volunteering for his experiment, how reluctantly he'd given in at last. The expression on his face as she faded into unconsciousness - an expression of resignation and stubbornness. She shook herself mentally and went on, "He came over here to set it up because his government wanted him to design weapons back in the States, and they wouldn't allow him access to the facilities he needed for medical research."

"He got tired of building things that killed people," Steve suggested.

"Not really," she disagreed. "As long as they killed the right people, he used to say. There was still plenty of evil in the world, and he was on a mission to wipe it out. At any rate, I think it was partly out of spite that he built the facility here and managed to keep it out of sight, figuratively speaking. After a few months of tinkering and testing he was ready to try it, first on a dog, then on a horse, finally on a chimpanzee.

"He found that mental ability wasn't compromised, and that physical functionality could be maintained with a series of small electrical shocks to stimulate muscle movement, stave off atrophy. When he said he was ready to try it on a human - I volunteered."

"But why?"

His blue eyes were guileless. Peggy wasn't sure if he'd understand - he wasn't an idiot or naive, but _he_ would never have gone into that coffin without a damned good reason.

"From a practical standpoint - I had no one left to grow old with," she said evenly. "No family, nothing but cleaning up my own country as well as so many others. I'd thought I was career military, but the war rather knocked that out of me."

"You were a natural leader," he protested. "You could have done anything you put your mind to."

Almost anything, she thought. "And had every door shut in my face?" she replied. "Things changed for women, partly because of the war, but not enough for some of us. I admit, I was impatient. Perhaps I could have championed the cause of women's rights. I went in a different direction, toward science instead of sisterhood."

He nodded. "Sounds like the kind of thing Howard would do."

"You understand, we'd been disbanded. Colonel Phillips, God rest him, was not at all well, and the funding for the SSR was running out. The Commandos were reassigned, at least Jones and Dugan were. I think Morita went into surveillance work of some kind. So that left me and Howard and just a few others. And Howard was obssessed with the cube - and with finding you, Steve."

"So I've heard." Steve rubbed the back of his neck and looked embarrassed. "Never thought losing me would be a big deal to anyone, let alone someone as brilliant as Stark."

"So here I am," said Peggy lightly. "A lab rat, as you once put it."

"More like a nice piece of cheese," Steve quipped.

"Why, Steve, you've learned to flirt."

"Only with you," he murmured and leaned to kiss her again.


	21. Chapter 21

Falsworth was in the kitchen making tea and humming in a satisfied sort of way when the scientists returned from their mission. Marianne came in and he got another cup without being asked.

"I presume all went well," he said, smiling.

"Mission accomplished," said his niece. "Stark and Banner are stowing the thing in the cellar, in a plain box tucked in with Howard Stark's memorabilia."

"Not only a box, I hope." Falsworth shot her a look and she rolled her eyes.

"Of course not. Stark put together a makeshift case for it - something like one they used in New York for the tesseract, I gather. Turns out the fragment was encased in some kind of polymer, with leads running from it, which I assume powered the life support unit."

"Not to mention yet another cryptic clue from dear old Dad," said Tony as he and Bruce entered the room. "A sealed envelope - duct-taped to the block the fragment was embedded in."

"What does it say?" Falsworth asked.

"Don't know yet," Tony replied. "It's addressed to Agent Peggy Carter, SSR."

"And the suspense is killing us," said Bruce. "Where is she?"

"I left them in the sitting room," Falsworth said.

The sitting room was dark and empty. The four of them split up to search, and it was Marianne who found Steve and Peggy asleep on the sofa in the library, Peggy on Steve's lap with her head on his shoulder, Steve's arms firmly around her. Marianne stood in the doorway, smiling, and heard her uncle coming up to stand beside her.

"About damned time," muttered Falsworth. "It only took seventy years and a few disasters to get them together. The Fates owe us one, old girl."

"More than one," Marianne replied. "I think I'm about to be sacked, Uncle James."

"Why am I not surprised? Tell me all, dear."

They withdrew from the doorway and stood in the hall. Marianne described briefly their foray into espionage and pilferage while Falsworth grinned and shook his head.

"So my security code will show up in the logs," she said without much regret. "I'm sure I'll be called on the carpet for it, if not summarily barred from the premises."

"Not to worry," said Tony, who had come upon their conversation. "I had JARVIS hack in and scramble that part of the log. No one will be the wiser."

"That was rather sneaky," said Falsworth. "I approve."

"Well, there you go, the head of the committee says so," Tony grinned. "Why are we standing around in the hall?"

"Shh," said Marianne, cocking her head at the door to the library, which still stood ajar. Tony tiptoed over and peeked, then beckoned the other two over.

"Snug as two bugs in a rug," he said, but Steve was stirring. His eyes opened and he blinked in the semi-darkness, then smiled when he saw who was there.

"What time is it?"

"Time for tea," said Falsworth. "Almost dinner, actually. If you can manage to restore Agent Carter to full consciousness."

"Must I?" Peggy murmured, her face still buried against Steve's chest. When she raised her head and looked up, her face was serene and her eyes shone with something that looked familiar to Tony.

He couldn't put his finger on it; he watched as Steve lifted her off his lap and they stood hand in hand, smiling at each other. Then he knew: it was the same expression he'd seen on Steve's face in the old photograph.

"Did you kiss her yet?" he said, opting for flippancy over sentiment.

Steve scowled at Tony, but Peggy just laughed, wrapped her arms around Steve's neck and pressed a long kiss to his cheek.

"What news?" she then asked briskly.

"Dinner," was Tony's equally succinct answer. 

Over dinner, Bruce, Tony, and Marianne gave their report.

"Howard's fragment is stowed safely in the cellar," said Tony. "Evidence of our visit has been buried or deleted. And you've got mail, Ms. Carter."

He held out the envelope they had found attached to the fragment casing; Peggy turned it over, frowning.

"What on earth?" she murmured. "From Howard?"

"Open it," Tony urged.

Peggy shot him a look. She couldn't decide whether he was as loose a cannon as he was painted in the media, or if his outward eccentricity was a mask for a more intensely focused mind underneath. Either way, she wasn't about to indulge his curiosity for his sake.

"I'll read it later," she said. "In private."

"There might be another clue," Tony began, but Bruce shook his head at his friend.

"This is the first item we've found that had a name attached to it," he said. "If Ms. Carter thinks it's relevant, I'm sure she'll share it, won't you?"

Peggy nodded, adding, "At some point, may I have a look at whatever other 'items' you've discovered? Perhaps I can shed some light."

Steve sat beside her, silent throughout the meal until Bruce leaned in from his other side and asked, "What's up, Cap? Jet lag?"

"What lag? Oh, the time difference - it doesn't seem to bother me," said Steve, startled out of his brown study. "I was just wondering about Howard, and whether he ever got to work with the tesseract, or if SHIELD kept even him away from it."

"I'm hoping he left some clue as to why the fragment reactivated in synch with the tesseract," Bruce told him. "That's what brought us here in the first place. Not that finding you wasn't a huge bonus," he said to Peggy.

"And now that you've found me," she said, "what are you going to do with me?"

"Me, nothing," said Bruce. "As far as I'm concerned you're a free being. These days, though, you can't cross a lot of borders without some form of identification, so your best plan might be to make your home in your homeland."

Steve's face fell just a little, but he recovered and said, "We'll have to see about papers, I guess. If for no other reason, to prove you *are* a free woman, so SHIELD can't come and 'collect' you as an anonymous specimen."

"And put me in their tower, like Rapunzel?"

"My tower," Tony corrected. That man heard everything, thought Peggy. He went on, "It's actually my property - I just let the Avengers use it as a base. Not SHIELD - the Avengers. And if you want to come live in my tower, you're more than welcome, in case Steve hasn't mentioned it."

Said the spider to the fly, Peggy told herself.

"Is that where you're living, Steve?" she asked.

"I have a place, in Brooklyn," he responded. "Just a little apartment. Haven't spent much time there, so far."

"Busy defending and avenging and all," James chimed in. Dinner was apparently over and everyone had tuned into Peggy's conversation with Steve, Bruce, and Tony.

"Full time job," Steve said lightly. "How about that underground tour, Stark?"

Marianne and James opted to remain upstairs, as the cellar was not a comfortable size for six adults, and the others filed downstairs. The lights were on and the air wasn't as stuffy as Peggy had expected.

"I brought in a portable air filtration system," Tony told her when asked. He pointed to a corner of the ceiling, at a device that looked like an upside-down bowler hat. "Standard issue from our medical division."

He went over to the desk, which was cleared of everything except a block of what looked like glass, or possibly plastic, about the size of a briefcase. Through the slightly murky material, she could see the bright blue rectangle she remembered from Howard's setup.

"It wasn't that hard to remove it," said Tony. "The conduits coming out here - " he indicated three finger-sized holes in the back of the block - "led to a kind of container, like a - well, a coffin. I'm sure there was more tech embedded in the container, but we didn't have time to examine it."

He sounded disappointed. Of course, like Howard and so many scientists, he wanted to know more about the device.

"Perhaps there's something about it in those reams of paper," said Bruce.

"What paper?" Peggy asked. Tony told her about finding the disk and its clues to where to find some of Howard's secrets.

"It'll take years to sift through all that," he concluded. "I'm gonna need help. People I can trust. Meanwhile," he said, turning to a wooden box set on the floor beside the desk, "here's the first little gem my research coughed up."

Out of the box came a small, clear plastic bag, of the zipper variety, with some small object inside. Tony handled it carefully, drawing out what looked like a broken glass tube.

"That looks like the vial that broke when Kruger dropped it," Steve said incredulously. "What was Howard doing with it?"

"He was quite the pack rat for a while," Tony said, holding the tube up to the light. "This was originally wrapped in foil and stored in a cigar box. Do you know what was in it?"

"It was the last vial of the serum," said Steve, staring at the artifact. "Kruger was a German spy, trying to get away, to take it back to Schmidt. I went after him and we fought - and it went flying. I wrapped up the bits in his handkerchief and stuck them in my pocket, and gave them to the medics when I got back to the lab."

"You're talking about the lab where Erskine and Stark used the serum and the radiation on Steve," Bruce said, almost in awe. "The day you were transformed."

"Yes," said Peggy dryly, looking at Steve. "The day you swept me off my feet. Literally."

Tony smirked, but looked slightly puzzled. Obviously that part of the proceedings had not made it into any record. Which reminded her - 

"Did Howard leave any other record of that day?" she asked Tony. "Narrative, I mean, not the scientific details."

"Not that I've found, so far," Tony replied. "He wasn't a chatty kind of guy, anyway, was he? Anyway, this vial is listed in the coded inventory as 'Rogers - Day One - Test residue'. You can see why I need to recruit you to fill in the blanks, Steve. And Ms. Carter and Lord Falsworth, perhaps."

"A trip down memory lane," Peggy remarked.


	22. Chapter 22

After a bit more random rummaging among the boxes, the four went back upstairs. James had retired to one of the guest rooms; Marianne was reading in the library, and Bruce opted to keep her company. Peggy, Steve, and Tony repaired to Tony's messily organized den.

"So are you going to throw in your lot with us?" Tony asked Peggy. "Because I think it's past curfew over at the clinic. Funny how no one has called looking for you."

"Perhaps they have," said Peggy calmly. "I never turned on that cursed mobile phone they gave me. I understand the caller can record a message if their party cannot be reached, but I haven't checked the log, either."

"Wow, you're a quick study," said Tony with a grin. "It took old Steve here weeks to figure out the - "

"Can it, Tony," said Steve. "I had cell phones figured out within two days. I didn't have much to do besides catch up on things like technology, the first couple of months."

"I seem to recall you having trouble with the concept of text messaging," Tony pointed out.

Steve rolled his eyes. "It's just another form of teletype. I was born in 1918, not the Dark Ages. I had to get my laughs somehow, so I had some fun pulling your leg."

Tony was obviously more accustomed to being the prankster than the pranked; he stared at Steve for a moment, aghast, then burst out laughing.

"Touche, mon capitain," he said. "Now, you haven't been here before, have you?"

"No," said Steve. "I stayed in the barracks when we were in the city, and I didn't really go for the, um, kind of parties Howard threw here."

"I've been here on official business," Peggy said to Tony, "but I don't know anything about the living quarters except what you've shown us on tour."

"Well then!" Tony rubbed his hands together. "Come on, I'll find you two lovebirds a nest."

He started out of the room. Peggy had a sneaking suspicion about his last statement; laying a hand on his arm, she said, "You mean, two nests, don't you?"

Tony looked at Steve, who was for once not blushing, he asked, "Was I wrong? Aren't you two star-crossed lovers? Or has that, um, fallen through?"

"Whatever our relationship is, or isn't," Steve replied, "we're not sleeping together, Tony. In any sense of the word."

He looked almost stern, and Tony looked almost chastised.

"I should have known," he said. "Okay, in that case, I'm having JARVIS run bed checks at random intervals, so behave yourselves, you two."

Peggy was starting to wonder how the younger Stark had survived to adulthood with such an attitude, but she held her tongue and followed him upstairs, to a floor that was apparently set aside for guests. 

Once Tony had shown them what was available and made what he considered appropriately sly remarks, he took himself off; Steve and Peggy stood on the landing and were both suddenly silent. Steve offered his arm and she took it, and he walked her all of two or three yards to the door of the room she'd chosen.

"Thank you for seeing me to my door," Peggy said when they got there. "I've had a lovely time."

"Me, too." Steve looked oddly bashful as he added, "Can I - may I kiss you good night, Miss Carter?"

"I should hope so, Captain Rogers."

* * *

The next morning Peggy awoke to the sound of a tap on her door and Marianne's voice saying softly, "It's me, Peggy, I brought you some things. May I come in?"

Peggy sat up, covers held demurely up to her chin, and said, "Please do," and her friend came in quickly and shut the door.

"Did you sleep well? How do you feel? Are you hungry?" The questions came rapidly and Peggy, who knew the excitable side of Marianne by now, didn't bother to answer but smiled as she watched the items brought forth from Marianne's bag. Among other things, there was a nightgown, a blank journal and pen, comb and hairbrush, toothbrush, and - 

"Thank God," said Peggy fervently, opening a sealed package. "I wasn't looking forward to having to wear the same knickers again today. Haven't done that since the war ended and I got a semi-fixed address."

"We can go shopping for other things later, if you like," said Marianne as Peggy dressed.

"I can't imagine how," said Peggy drily. "I haven't any pocket change, let alone what I'm sure clothes cost these days."

"You do have some wherewithal," replied Marianne, just as drily. "Uncle James has kept up your trust fund, which he hints is, and I quote, substantial."

"Trust fund?" Peggy paused to think. "I know I signed my minuscule savings over to James before I went under. I can't imagine it's amounted to much."

"Well, either Uncle has had some very lucky years, or he's had the best financial advisers in the world. I'd go with the latter, considering it was Howard Stark who ran the show."

The two of them went downstairs to breakfast and found Steve and Bruce already at it. Steve stood when the women entered; Bruce looked belatedly sheepish.

"Sorry," he said. "I've been living in another culture for a long time. And nobody has better manners than Steve, anyway."

Peggy laughed. "No offense taken, Dr. Banner. As if I've ever stood on ceremony - just ask Steve. Or James."

"Please, call me Bruce. We're all in this together, after all."

"So what is 'this', exactly?" Steve asked when they were all seated with their food. "I gather there's been some covert operation involving Howard, suspended animation, gamma radiation, and the Cube?"

He glanced cautiously at Marianne, who smiled and said, "I know enough about the tesseract to know I should keep anything about it a secret."

"That's good enough for me," said Steve, relaxing. "What's our next move, then?"

The four of them looked at each other. Bruce shrugged.

"I don't know that there is one," he said. "Not for the rest of you, anyway. I want to run tests on the fragment and see if the data has changed since our last read."

"And I want answers to what Howard was up to, and when, why, and with whom," said Tony lightly, coming in and getting some food. "And how his science project was supposed to have turned out. Mind if I spirit you away to my lair, Ms. Carter?"

Peggy was more amused than irritated to see Tony's eyes flick over to Steve, then back to her, as though checking for Steve's approval. Steve wisely - or obliviously - remained silent as Peggy replied, "After breakfast, please. If you're going to pick my brain, I want to be as alert as possible."

James came in while Tony was eating and reported that Marianne had gone on to the clinic.

"Fingers crossed," he added. "She's got a fair poker face; as long as Stark's hacking did the trick, she won't be incriminated."

"You wound me," Tony grinned. "Of course it worked. You're talking to a man who invented a flying suit using hand tools and an old laptop that only ran DOS. In a cave, with a box of scraps."

"I'm going to pretend I understood that and get on with my life," said James. "Meanwhile, Peg, you might want to consider your next move."

"You're welcome here, for as long as you like," Tony told her. "It's not like anyone lives here on a regular basis, anyway."

"I'll think about it," said Peggy. Turning to Steve, she asked lightly, "What do you recommend, Captain, for someone just waking up after seventy years in limbo?"

He smiled at her, but his eyes were a little sad. "Wish I knew. We can figure it out together."

Before she left the room with Tony, she leaned down and dropped a kiss on Steve's cheek.


	23. Chapter 23

"So," said Tony as they headed downstairs. "I guessed right, huh? You and Cap, I mean."

"What do you mean?" Peggy asked, but she had a good idea what he was driving at.

"I mean, you had a thing, back then. Romantic longings and all." Tony ushered her into the "dungeon" and went over to sit on the desk.

"We didn't have anything," Peggy said bluntly. "If either of us entertained 'longings', as you put it, it didn't matter. There was a war on, we had work to do."

"If? You mean, you didn't know?" Tony was flipping through files in the box beside him, and he stopped to look up at her. "You didn't know he was sweet on you? That look he's giving you in that old photo - you never saw that look?"

"Stark," she said, exasperated. "Whatever Steve or I thought, or felt, or said, it's absolutely no concern of yours."

She took the lid off another box and idly looked over the file headings, which were numbers rather than words. "I hope you have a guide for whatever this means," she said, turning to look at Tony, then stopped when she saw the blank look he was giving the wall.

"What is it?" she said.

Without moving, Tony said, "I guess you knew my old man pretty well."

"Moderately," Peggy replied. "As well as anyone. He was always busy, always working, always thinking. Why?"

She had the feeling Howard's own son didn't know much more than she did, from what she'd heard and read so far.

Tony looked like he was about to ask her a question. Then his face went back to its usual confident smirk and he said, "Maybe you can help me guess at a few things. Here's the guide, such as it is."

They pored over the sketchy outline Tony had begun to craft, listing Howard's codes and what they might correspond to. Most of the codes led to files in the boxes there in the cellar and it was all either of them could do to resist plunging in and losing themselves in the information Howard had hoarded.

Peggy's experience working with Howard had prepared her for the focus and precision that Tony seemed to have inherited, or perhaps learned. Where he differed from his father was that he talked through everything as he did it, to her, to JARVIS, to himself, occasionally to Howard. 

"This is going to take a lifetime," he muttered at one point.

"Surely you have people who can collate this volume of data," said Peggy. "From what I've read, Stark Industries employs only the best and brightest."

"Starting at the top," Tony grinned. "But the only person I could really trust with all this - well, she's already got her hands full."

"With what?"

"Me," he replied. "Ms. Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, once my personal assistant, then Chief Executive Officer of Stark Industries, quit, came back as a 'consultant', was eventually persuaded to reassume the mantle of power as CEO."

"I don't hear where you come in, any more," said Peggy.

"Well, she's also queen of my heart," he said whimsically. "My main squeeze. My pole star. Center of my universe and all that."

"And here I thought you were the center of the universe," she snorted, but she was smiling.

"Oh, she's the center of my center," Tony said lightly. "Thus, busy beyond belief. I don't suppose you'd be willing to take this on."

He gestured at the organized chaos around them and Peggy felt a chill run down her spine. Of course, he didn't know the pigeonhole she'd been stuck in for a year after Steve had gone - treated as a glorified clerk, given the most rudimentary of tasks. Stuck behind a desk until Howard extricated her for more meaningful duties.

Tony was looking a bit startled.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to provoke a flashback or anything. You okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said automatically. "I'll give it some consideration, shall I? Do you suppose it's time for dinner yet?"

"Probably past time. Let's go forage."

However, the only person left in the dining room was Bruce Banner, who was eating and jotting notes at the same time; the disarray on the table indicated that other people had come and gone. Bruce looked up as they came in.

"Second seating," he told them. "You're lucky Steve left you some. Dig in."

When Tony and Peggy sat down with their meal, Tony and Bruce launched into a discussion over something to do with the element Howard had apparently discovered, and Peggy sank into a brown study. She stirred when she heard Steve's name mentioned and turned her attention to the conversation.

"Project Rebirth," Bruce was saying, "consisted of both those components - the serum and whatever Howard Stark referred to as 'Vita-Rays'. If I had known that I'd probably never have tried the gamma radiation method."

"Well, we'll never know now," Tony groused. "Not unless Howard left some more indecipherable clues in that pile of dust in the cellar."

"Never know what?" asked Peggy.

"What the hell was a 'Vita-Ray'," said her host. 

"You don't suppose SHIELD is in possession of that knowledge, do you?" said Bruce bitterly. "It'd be just like the government to have that information and to withhold it. Even from you."

"Wouldn't do us any good, anyway," Tony said. "You said yourself that the gamma effect can't be reversed."

"I'd have some fun trying," Bruce replied.

"Gamma effect?" Peggy asked. "Do you mean the radiation from the experiment that - altered you, Dr. Banner?"

"That's what I mean. And Tony, it doesn't matter whether the effect can be reversed. I'm just trying to piece together what Howard and Erskine were doing, the science of it. I suspect it might be related to that element."

"Starkonium." Tony stared. "Are you suggesting that what drives this blue light special - " he tapped the metal disk under his shirt - " - is the source of the mysterious rays?"

"No," Peggy broke in, and both men turned to stare at her. "The other way round. You told us, Tony, Howard was unable to synthesize the element. What if he discovered the structure of the element while he was experimenting with Vita-Rays? Whatever those were... what if the radiation he used with the serum was a precursor to your Starkonium?"

She could practically hear Stark's brain whirling. After a full minute of silent cogitation, he jumped to his feet and said, "Coconut...and metal..."

Bruce and Peggy exchanged a confused look.

"Where's Steve?" Tony burst out.

"Said he was going to go for a spin with Falsworth," Bruce replied. "Why - ?"

Tony was already on the phone. "Come on, come *on*," he muttered. His head jerked up at the same moment that they heard the Iron Man theme, faintly, coming from the next room.

"Left his phone again," Tony grumbled. "Dammit. He does that on purpose, just to annoy people. Meaning me."

"Not really," Bruce said to Peggy. "He doesn't take it everywhere like most people. He leaves it home when he's off duty or out on some excursion. I think bugging Tony is just a perk."

Peggy, who had still not activated her mobile, smiled. "And James tells me he doesn't need one. Says that if he has an emergency, he'll get help the old fashioned way, by shouting himself hoarse."

Tony seemed to have found an alternative to collaring Steve. He turned his gaze upon Peggy and said, "Do you remember the day of the procedure? Project Rebirth?"

She wasn't likely ever to forget it, but she said simply, "Yes, I do."

"Can you tell me everything you remember anyone doing or saying that day?" he asked eagerly. "There might be a clue..."

She was taken aback. "Such as?"

"No, no, don't want to lead the witness," Tony said, activating his tablet and opening a few items. "Let me just - do you mind if I get JARVIS to record this?"

Puzzled, Peggy looked at Bruce, who shrugged and said, "Your call."

"I'm going to need more coffee," said Peggy resolutely.


	24. Chapter 24

Fortunately, the events Peggy was remembering were only a few years behind her, so she could remember quite a lot. She and Tony ended up in the sitting room, her feet comfortably propped, while Bruce dozed in an armchair nearby.

She had just wrapped up her account where Steve had returned from the docks, after several other agents had arrived to take charge of Kruger's body, when the man himself breezed in with James not far behind.

Steve came over and kissed Peggy on the cheek while James inquired as to tea.

"Tony has a burning question for you, Steve," said Peggy. "Tea is in the offing, James."

"Shoot," Steve said to Tony, who was actually on the edge of his seat.

"When you came out of that tin can, after the procedure with the serum - can you remember anything you sensed? Did anything smell or taste different?"

"You mean that very minute?" Steve grimaced. "Hmm...I noticed I could breathe easily. I was kind of light-headed, not surprisingly, 'cause I kept sucking in more air than I was used to." He closed his eyes. "There was a smell - like - a bakery smell. If I had to guess, I'd say - macaroons. Like I used to get from the place down the street."

Tony leaped out of his seat. "Coconut macaroons?"

"Yeah," Steve replied, opening his eyes. "Just the memory is making me hungry."

"Was there something else? Some taste in your mouth?"

"I don't think so. I hadn't had anything to eat or drink for twelve hours, not even water, which was okay - the water on base tasted tinny, anyway." He looked at Tony. "Actually, now that you mention it, that whole lab had a metallic sort of smell to it."

"Coconut, and metal?" Peggy prompted Tony with the words of his previous outburst.

"JARVIS, you remember," Tony said as a grin spread across his face. "The first time I implanted the element in my reactor unit. I said it tasted like coconut and metal, right?"

"That is correct, sir."

"So at least anecdotally, that shows a relationship between that element - the one Howard discovered - and the Vita-Rays, whose composition has gone with him to the grave."

"Or at least into the cellar," Peggy added.

She turned to Steve and was startled to see his expression. He was staring at Tony with a look of disapproval, though she couldn't imagine why.

"I've been cooped up in the dungeons all day," she said lightly. "Care to take a walk, soldier?"

Steve's face cleared and he stood, taking her hand.

When the two of them were alone, in lavish sort of conservatory with huge windows, Peggy asked, "What was bothering you, just then? About Stark?"

Her companion was quiet for a minute; she sat down and waited while he stared out the window. At last he said, "Sometimes, it makes me mad when people talk about people I knew, back then, people I knew well. Friends."

"Howard."

"Well, yeah. Tony talks like the guy was a stranger; he doesn't even refer to him as his father. It's - disrespectful. Howard was a brilliant scientist, a good man. A fighter."

Peggy said quietly, "And he was also a ladies' man, an impresario, a gambler, in more ways than one."

Steve sat beside her, frowning. "Sure. Though I don't think too many people remember that side of him. Not officially, anyway."

"And what do people think they remember about you?"

Steve snorted. "Nothing. They remember Captain America all right - but that's not *me*, you know that."

"Well, there you are. There's Howard as you and I knew him, and then there's Howard Stark as recorded for posterity. Living in the shadow of either of those versions must have been difficult for Howard's son."

Steve seemed to mull that for a while. Then he reached over to take her hand and said, "Guess I kind of envy Tony - all I ever knew about my dad was what my mother told me."

"One day, you two are going to have to sit down over a pint and talk about Howard, and Tony, and you and the war," Peggy said firmly. "I gather you've both been busy, but really. Why don't men just air their differences and have done with it?"

"I gave him a chance to," Steve grinned. "Told him to put on the suit and we'd go a few rounds."

"Oh, Lord." Peggy rolled her eyes. "Typical. What did he say?"

"Well, just then the helicarrier was attacked, so the duel never took place."

"And after?"

Steve shrugged. "Haven't spent much time around him, since the battle. He and Pepper have been rebuilding and designing and I went on the road for a while. I've been around Europe, parts of it, anyway, but I never left New York before I joined the Army."

Peggy leaned into his side and he put his arm around her. She was suddenly tired, tired of talking, of questions, of science. Of the past.

She lifted her head to find Steve bending to kiss her already; they turned into each other's arms as toward refuge. This time she gave herself completely over to Steve's mouth, letting him caress and explore and taste. When she had a chance, she said breathlessly, "Either you're a quick study, Rogers, or you've done this more than I thought."

His lips curled into a smile against her cheek. "Bet you think Lorraine was my first kiss ever, huh?"

"I wondered. Ever so briefly. You did look rather - stunned, when I interrupted."

"I was," Steve exclaimed, drawing back to see her face. "I felt like I was in her sights with no escape route. The USO girls - well, sure, I kissed a few of 'em - just experimentally, you know - "

"Of course," Peggy smirked.

"But Lorraine was kind of predatory. And we were practically in public."

"Yes. You were."

He pulled her closer and murmured, "I should have dragged you off into a dark corner. We would never have made it to Howard's workshop. I could have showed you I was no slacker in the kissing department."

And I could have showed *you* a few things, thought Peggy. She said, "I imagine you've had some - offers, since you woke up."

"Offers, yeah. Of some things I'd never even heard of - and that's saying a lot, considering who I spent the war with. I mean, the Commandos, you know - "

"I know," she laughed.

"It seems kind of rude to talk about kissing other women," he murmured. "When I have my arms full of the only one who matters to me."

Peggy didn't know what to say to that. She didn't have to; the next moment Steve released her and went down on one knee, holding her hand, his eyes almost on a level with hers.

"Hey, Peggy," he said, softly. "Will you marry me? Please?"


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have yet to see _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ , and obviously this story was begun long before CATWS came out, so this has no spoilers therefor, and is not relevant to any events that happened in the new film.

Peggy cradled Steve's face in her hands. She knew what she wanted, in her heart, but her mind was whirling with all she had learned, and all she had yet to figure out -

To hell with figuring things out. They could do that together.

"Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, I will."

"You will," he echoed, looking a little stunned. "You really will?"

"Yes," said Peggy again, amused. "Did you think I'd say no?"

"I didn't," he stammered. "I didn't - think. I just knew. About you and me, I mean, not that I knew you'd say yes, but that we belong together, that there's some kind of reason why we're both here, now, when we should both..."

He trailed off, mortified, but Peggy laughed and finished for him. "When we should both be dead, you were going to say."

Steve nodded.

"I agree," she said and tugged him up to sit beside her again. "And I have an even more convincing argument in favor of it."

"What's that?"

"I love you," she whispered and wound her arms around his neck.

Steve lifted her onto his lap and just before he kissed her he said, "I love you, too, Peggy."

It was silly to think that their kisses now were somehow different from those they'd exchanged before. Yet it seemed they were both more bold with lips and hands, and she was just toying with the idea of unbuttoning Steve's shirt when a polite cough came from the doorway.

"Thought I might find you here," said James blithely. "What kind of mischief are you two cooking up now?"

"The kind where three's a crowd," Steve replied, but he was smiling. "What's up?"

"Believe it or not, not a thing," James said. "The house got too quiet - Stark and Banner are in the dungeon, Marianne went out, and I am avoiding my usual afternoon nap out of fear that I might miss something. Alas, there's nothing to miss. Unless either of you knows something I don't." He raised his eyebrows pointedly.

Steve and Peggy exchanged glances, and she guessed that it was too soon to share the news of their engagement. She did have something she needed to discuss with these two, though, and only these two.

"Well, there is something I was about to tell Steve," said Peggy as James sat across from them. "And - I don't know how much of it you know, James, but perhaps you can fill in some of the blanks. And you mustn't tell anyone, not yet, anyway."

"Something about Howard?" James asked. "And your mysterious experiment?"

Peggy sighed. It seemed as though all she'd done since she woke up was talk.

"I didn't know what Howard intended to do regarding the tesseract fragment, after the war," she began. "He spent less time at sea and more time making calculations, for what I found out were his 'cold-sleep' tests. He was working mainly here in England and we saw him occasionally, 'we' being James and I and a few others from your old unit."

"He spent a fair bit of change on telephone calls to you, old girl," James interrupted. "As I recall. Research-related, I'm sure."

Peggy shot him a look, but went on with her story.

"By 1948, he was confident he could preserve a human for more than a decade and revive them whole and sane. He felt that soldiers who had suffered debilitating injury or illness could be suspended until medical science caught up to solve their difficulties."

"Sounds like the comics I used to read," said Steve. "But if anyone could do it, Howard could."

"He was ready to test it - on himself. I told him it was too risky, that he needed to perform more procedures on primates, or even on human volunteers. I don't claim to understand the science, but if anything went wrong, no one but Howard could avert a tragedy. He had to be on the outside of that box, not the inside.

"It turned out that he didn't have a say. The American government and SHIELD forbade him - said they needed him more than ever, and that even if he did survive the procedure, no one knew what kind of world he'd wake up in, or how his talents might be put to use if he was revived by the wrong people.

"Howard was against subjecting anyone else to the procedure," she went on. "He said he wouldn't ask anyone to take a risk he wouldn't take, himself. He said he needed someone with the brains and nerves to function well in whatever situation he woke up in; not just any soldier, but the right person."

"Sounds like Dr. Erskine," said Steve quietly. "I knew the two of them saw eye to eye on that."

"Howard shelved the project," Peggy went on. "Or at least, he convinced the watchdogs that he had done. Then he told me what had driven him to work so hard on the procedure."

Steve looked from her to James, who looked just as puzzled as he.

"You've got us on the edge of our seats, Peg," James prompted.

She'd spent so much time figuring out what to say, and still she found herself stumbling over the words.

"You must promise not to mention this to anyone," she told them both. "Not until I'm sure whom I can trust, besides you two."

"Of course," James said immediately. Steve nodded.

"The purpose of the project - and the reason for all the secrecy - was to prevent a crisis which we believed would take place in the future. A crisis involving HYDRA weapons using the synthetic power source Zola helped develop."

"And which Tony Stark has figured out how to replicate," Steve said grimly. "Thanks to Howard. Doesn't seem like a coincidence, does it?"

"I think perhaps you turned up just in the nick of time," said James. "Both of you."


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My profuse apologies to those who have been left hanging far too long. I've been editing this and thinking I'd already posted it. Allons-y!

"What was the crisis?" Steve wanted to know.

"Zola was experimenting with artificial intelligence," said Peggy. "He swore it was for the good of the Allies, that it would take the place of men in high-risk situations. Something similar is now used to fly surveillance missions."

"Drones," James nodded.

"Command assumed Zola was creating something like a robot, that could drive or fly or operate machinery. The man claimed to be completely open about his methods and experiments, but Howard didn't buy it. His thought was that whatever Zola was up to would be used not for the Allies, but against us, that if Zola was the only one who knew how his creation worked, we'd be at his mercy."

"And the mercy of whoever owned him," James said grimly. "I remember. The powers that be didn't want to hear it from Howard; they said he was a scientist, not a strategist, and that their eye was constantly on Zola and his minions. That he couldn't make a move without their knowing when, where, how, and with whom."

"I'm afraid that my experience in intelligence put me squarely on Howard's side as well," said Peggy. "Better men than Zola have been subverted, and for less. I didn't trust him, either, I objected to the kind of access he had to SHIELD facilities and research. For my troubles I was sent to New York, away from my usual sources, and given tasks far too easy for someone of my experience."

"Where was Colonel Phillips all this time?" Steve asked.

"He and Howard were assigned to the atomic test project," Peggy replied. "Howard kept in touch, as best he could. We developed a kind of shorthand for communicating anything important."

"I don't know why they didn't just let you come back home," James muttered.

"They probably thought they could keep an eye on Peggy, Howard, and Phillips, as long as they were all on American soil," said Steve.

"Didn't do them any good, though." Peggy looked faintly smug. "I managed to get information to Howard about Zola's doings, and he sent me some ideas about the Cube. All in our code, mind you."

"Tell me about Zola," Steve said. "What happened to him?"

"He was still alive when I went under," Peggy said, looking at James, who took up the narrative.

"He muddled about with his experiments until the war ended," he said. "By then, it seemed apparent that whatever he'd been trying to do hadn't worked, and he faded into the background, into academia, we thought. Eventually, he died, in 1972, I think. Some ordinary terminal illness.

"There have been a few of us keeping an eye out for any trouble he might have set in motion all those years ago. I wasn't privy to whatever Howard and Peggy had cooked up - I only knew the terms of her interment and future revival."

"Here's where it gets really twisty," Peggy sighed. "Howard had a theory about Zola's project, but he didn't give anyone the entire story. He held some of the information, he shared some with me, and gave James a few crumbs. I'm guessing there were others he might have trusted as well. 'Don't want to put all our eggs in one basket,' he used to say."

"His idea was to create some way to bring all the eggs together again," said James, "once Zola's evil intentions came to light. There were faint rumors, but nothing we could act on. Eventually I retired, Howard married Maria, and Phillips passed away, God rest him."

"But - Peggy." Steve frowned. "That still doesn't explain why you were missing in action almost as long as I was."

"I wouldn't mind hearing the reasons for that, myself," came a new voice from the doorway. Tony Stark lounged against the door jamb, arms folded, attempting to look casual.


	27. Chapter 27

"So this is where the party's at," he continued. "Shall I have tea sent up?"

"Tony," said Steve. "Peggy was just filling us in."

"Bringing you up to date on Dad's secret science experiments?" Tony took a few steps into the room. "Ever stop to think that maybe I'm entitled to hear about those, too? Seeing how I'm right here, in Howard's house, surrounded by Howard's memorabilia, trying to decipher Howard's code?"

"As I was about to say," Peggy interrupted, "part of the plan was for me to go to ground with what information I had. I was to get a new identity, move to Australia or some remote place, and lie low until needed."

"Another bit of Howard's memorabilia," Tony snapped. "Like all the other obscure bits and pieces he left in his wake. Even the data about the new element - I had to jump through some mind-boggling hoops to figure that out. Well, obviously, you're not in Australia, so what happened?"

Peggy studied him for a moment, thinking how like his father he was; able to be angry and yet focused on the present issue at the same time.

"HYDRA happened," she said. "I was still in the service; I intercepted information that showed HYDRA was not only still active, but looking for me. For anyone who'd worked with Howard in the past decade, but particularly me as I was still active military. I suppose they thought they could use me either for information or as a bargaining chip."

"So that's why you so conveniently disappeared," James said. "I heard about your presumed demise in the line of duty, followed quickly by a private call from Howard debunking said report. That was when he put forth the idea of the clinic."

"Makes sense," said Tony. "A closed system, as disconnected as possible from SHIELD. And thus, from HYDRA."

Steve frowned. "'Thus'? What makes you say that?"

"While you've been up here enjoying the air," Tony said sardonically, "I've been slaving away over that unspeakable pile of dead trees - "

" - in the comfort of your own dining room," James inserted slyly.

" - and I keep finding tantalizing bits and pieces that are setting off alarms in my head. I can't follow all the bunny trails, but more than one has mentioned that Howard thought there was a mole in SHIELD, as you suspected, that the mole was just the tip of the iceberg, and that he or she was HYDRA."

Peggy looked grim. Steve looked shocked.

"Zola?" he said. Turning to Peggy, he asked, "Did you know about that?"

"No," she replied. "But it doesn't surprise me. That was one of the eggs Howard tucked away in another basket - Tony's basket."

"Wonder how many baskets the man had," James said.

"By the time we dig up the information we need, we'll probably all be hailing HYDRA," said Tony dolefully. There was a faint buzz from the phone in his pocket and he fished it out and looked at it.

"Bruce," he said, reading and frowning. "Why is Bruce texting me? I'm right - whoa."

Peggy looked at Steve, who shrugged and looked at James, but before anyone could ask anything, Tony had whisked out of the room, shouting, "Eureka! All hands, to the dungeon!"

"The game's afoot." James waved the other two on, saying, "I'll catch up. Too slow for you."

Peggy ran out without another glance, but Steve gave James a grin before following her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quickie, to tide y'all over while I forge onward with a recent stroke of inspiration!


	28. Chapter 28

Apparently, Bruce had risen from his semi-nap and made another run at the papers on the dining room table, which led him to the cellar, which led him to something that had prompted Tony's precipitous departure. As Peggy descended the last staircase, she could hear them both talking at and over each other.

"So this might have been the event Zola had been planning around - "

"And the gamma radiation burst in 1989 - "

"A solar event of that magnitude - "

"How could he have calculated that?"

"Dammit, Bruce, I'm an engineer, not an astrophysicist!"

Peggy dashed into the storage room with Steve on her heels, and they both stopped to stare. Tony and Bruce were grinning down at something Bruce had found, a book - a textbook? - that Bruce was holding. The latter man was dusty and his hair even more on end than usual.

"Been playing in the cobwebs?" Peggy asked.

Bruce turned a gleeful face to her.

"I think I know why things didn't go according to Howard's plan," he said. "Or Zola's. It's astronomical."

Peggy wondered if that was the latest word for "stupendous" or "amazing", but as it turned out, Bruce meant it literally.

"Zola was - he had counted on an event that he thought would take place in 1989," Bruce went on. "This is a handwritten account of an interview, probably secret, where Zola dropped some braggadocio about how his work would change the world, how it would come to fruition 'in less than fifty years' - and how the very heavens would bring it about. I found it in a pile - "

" - the pile tagged 'Zola' on the table," Tony broke in. "I hadn't gotten to it yet, was trying to get into my dad's head to begin with. There are notes in this textbook, not Zola's, Howard's, notes about solar flares and other natural phenomena."

"Zola was in his forties at the time, if this account is correctly dated," Bruce continued. "He'd already started studying artificial intelligence. I'm not sure how that's connected to the astronomical data, but - "

"But now that we know what Dad was up to," Tony gloated, "we can start connecting some dots. The wireless down here is iffy - let's bring this stuff upstairs."

He picked up another old book and several files; Steve went over to the as yet unopened file boxes and asked, "You need any of these? I don't really do science, but I can fetch and carry all right."

Peggy left them to sort things out and went back up the stairs, meeting up with James on the ground floor.

"Save your breath," she told him. "They're bringing up some things from the archive. Bruce said something about solar activity and gamma rays..."

"The plot thickens," James said. "Very well, I will resign myself to wait for the debriefing. Or for Marianne to interpret."

He gave her his arm and they strolled toward the lounge area.

"There was mention, before we were interrupted, of Howard's suspicions that there was a HYDRA mole in SHIELD. What do you know about that?" Peggy asked.

"He didn't know for certain, of course," said James. "D'you recall a fellow named Strucker? One of Schmidt's cronies?"

"I remember the name...Oh yes, he was the one behind the team the Nazis sent to wipe out the Howling Commandos. Never did get the upper hand, though, did they? He sank out of sight after the war."

"He resurfaced in the decade following." James sat down on the sofa. "There were sketchy reports of experiments, which SHIELD intercepted, that sounded oddly like Zola's scheme for artificial intelligence - but the few details Howard could sort out hinted at what we now call androids. Not a machine-cultivated consciousness, but an organic receptacle for a human mind, which would be transferred into the construct when the old body was damaged or terminated."

Peggy stared at him, aghast.

"Good Lord. What did Strucker have to do with this?"

"His name came up at least twice in the reports, as the man in charge of the research - along with another name. John Bronson, agent of SHIELD."

"So Bronson was the mole?"

James shook his head. "Howard wouldn't tell me any more than that. Asking after Bronson would have blown the gaffe, so I kept mum and trusted Howard's instincts."

Just then, Tony, Bruce, and Steve passed through on their way to the dining room, which had become more like a command center due to the paper and tech now scattered about. Peggy went to stand in the doorway between the two rooms.

"I know you're hot on the trail of cosmic events," she said to Tony, "but can you spare a moment to discuss the mole theory?"

"I can consider more than one thing at a time," Tony said with a wave of his hand.

"Very well, then, James tells me that Howard mentioned a Hydra agent named Strucker, as well as one John Bronson, supposedly an agent of SHIELD. Have you found any information regarding those names?"

"Not yet," said Tony, pulling books out of a box and distributing them among the piles on the table. "I remember Strucker, though, from - what was it? - yeah, when I was tiptoeing through Fury's files on Phase Two. His name came up in a discussion of the LMD project."

"Translation, please."

"Life Model Decoys," Tony said. "Doppelgängers, by any other name. The idea was that you could grow a duplicate from somebody's DNA, indistinguishable from the real thing, and the donor could control the LMD's actions. SHIELD ran some experiments with it, but I never got far enough to see if it was viable."

"You were busy looking for top-secret weapons plans at the time," Steve said. "There's only so much a computer can do."

He and Tony exchanged a smirk, but Peggy felt it was more comradely than hostile.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some seriously "bad science" in this chapter, as my friend Doc used to say, though at least one of the events actually occurred. I know nothing about gamma radiation, solar flares, or artificial hibernation, and if I did I'd be too busy sciencing to write fanfiction. All of which is to say, I beg your indulgence regarding the use of "handwavium" in the cause of artistic license.

"So that accounts for some of Howard's - " Peggy began.

"Paranoia," Tony muttered.

" - caution," she finished. "If he thought there was a breach of SHIELD security, and he didn't know whom to trust...That explains a lot, actually."

She was thinking, suddenly, about the day she went under, the look on Howard's face. She knew he wasn't happy with the procedure; she'd convinced him she was the best subject, and she'd thought that concern for her survival accounted for his anxious expression.

Perhaps it was time to read that note.

"Well, carry on," she said, collecting herself before anyone noted her reverie. "I think I'll retire for a bit before dinner. You can debrief me later on the solar event situation."

Steve gave her a look of longing, but she shook her head a tiny bit and he turned his attention back to the boxes.

Peggy went upstairs to her room, locked the door, and retrieved the note from its hiding place. Carefully she used her fingernail to open a slit in the envelope, and after some visual and tactile exploration determined that there were two pieces of paper inside, and nothing else.

The first was inscribed with Howard's engineer-style handwriting, more like block letters than cursive, on heavy high-quality paper. Made to last, thought Peggy. The other sheet looked like a page torn from a lined notebook, and it contained lines of characters that were obviously some kind of code.

_"Dear Peg,_

_"Well, this is it - if my crazy theory works, the unit will have been re-activated and you'll wake up in 1989. If something goes haywire and it's already the 22nd century, I apologize for not being around for you to chew out."_

_Definitely Howard, she thought._

_"In the unlikely event that I'm not there when you wake up, here's what I can tell you in plain English. No one at the facility knows who you are or why you're really there; they think you're one of my harebrained experiments and don't expect you to ever regain consciousness. I've cultivated that impression, for obvious reasons._

_"James, of course, will be looking out for you in case I don't make it. If he doesn't make it either - well, as usual, I have a contingency plan for that as well. I'm in the process of encrypting or destroying anything to do with this operation. In order to decipher the encryption - and to even find the notes - you'll have to talk to J, or to his representative._

_"I know we agreed to keep this vague. I hate being vague; you know that! The information we discussed is really very simple - I've organized all the data in such a way that if any element of the system is lost, the rest of the system can function without it. Sorry to refer to you as an engineering concept, but you've been called less complimentary things, I bet._

_"No machine can take the place of a human with a brain - especially a brain like yours - so it's going to be up to you to find out whether the people we trust now can still be trusted in the future. Even if I'm wrong about the mole (please note the date and time), there still may be those who would carry on the work of Herr Doktor Looney Tunes._

_"Unfortunately, the guy whose moral compass is most likely to sniff out the bad guys isn't currently with us. If he were, we could try to figure out whether his enhancements included an extended life span, and you'd have a guaranteed ally in the future. You know my thoughts on his presumed demise, Peg - I swear I'll keep looking until I find him. Dead or alive._

_"If I'm alive, James or I will be in touch with you soon. If I'm dead, whoever oversees my estate is going to find some boxes with my research in them, with instructions to seal and store them at the house in this city. Remember the song, just the way we used to sing it, the exact lyrics. The ones J and I taught you because Rogers wouldn't!_

_"I really, really hate having to be so vague. I hope none of this is necessary, that you wake up sane, and that I'm not too old to go dancing with you when you do._

_"Cheers,_

_Howard"_

Peggy read through the letter two more times, then returned it to its envelope and picked up the extra piece of paper. There were nine columns and five rows of characters, both numbers and letters, in handwriting that resembled Howard's. The note scribbled below them read:

"Forget Hitler. Where do you hang your washing?"

She was still staring at both messages when someone knocked on her door.

"Peggy? It's Marianne. May I come in?"

Peggy slipped the papers into her pocket and went to the door.

"I was just taking a break from the melee downstairs," she said to Marianne as the latter came in. "How are things going?"

"Still percolating," Marianne grinned. "Uncle James and Captain Rogers are trying to answer questions about the state of science in 1949, Mr. Stark is peppering them with said questions, and Bru - Dr. Banner is in a corner poring over one document at a time."

"And how are things over at the clinic?" Peggy asked as they sat down. "I trust you're not in any serious trouble."

"Not as far as I can tell," said the doctor, but her tone was cautious. "But then, you'd hardly expect there to be a hue and cry over something that was never supposed to be there. No one has sought me out for questioning."

"Perhaps they're glad to be rid of it. Does anyone seem to have a problem with my - relocation?"

"Again, not a hint. I don't feel quite right about the place, though - Drs. Newman and Hodges were shut up all afternoon in her office. I left at teatime, couldn't concentrate on actual work, anyway." She shrugged, a little sheepishly. "I think I've earned a day out by now."

Peggy got up and paced to the window. She wasn't sure how far she could trust anyone but her instinct told her that this young woman was made of the same steel as her uncle James. Even as she made up her mind to speak, Marianne pre-empted her.

"All my research and notes are backed up on my laptop every day," she said matter-of-factly. "We have a few experiments running, nothing I can't abandon and start over somewhere else."

Peggy turned to look at her, gratified that Marianne had spoken up.

"It's possible that we're about to enter a more risky phase of this - project, depending on what Stark and Banner manage to decipher," she admitted. "I wouldn't want you to get caught in our wake and regret it later."

"I've been talking the ears off Uncle James, ever since you woke up," Marianne told her. "It isn't as though we hadn't thought about the possibility you might be part of something, well, bigger than we thought. Than I thought, anyway. Which is to say that, if you have need of me on your continuing adventure, I'm prepared to throw in my lot with you lot."

Peggy smiled, thinking how she would have been thankful for such a friend during the War.

After dinner, Steve drew Peggy aside.

"About - what we were talking about, earlier, just you and me..." he began.

"About getting married," Peggy prompted, amused.

"I meant it, every word," said Steve earnestly. "I just haven't told the others because - well, it isn't relevant to everything else that's going on. Is it?"

"No, I agree," she said. "We can wait for the right time. And I don't mind at all keeping it to ourselves, for now. It's a lovely secret."

"Yeah." He smiled down at her and she pulled him into an embrace as they stood in the hall outside the kitchen.

"Captain Rogers."

Peggy was impressed; Steve didn't flinch or blush or pull away, just freed his lips long enough to say, "Yes, JARVIS."

"I hate to interrupt, but Mr. Stark is approaching your location. You did ask me to give you a 'heads up' in such a situation."

"Just like the perfect butler," Peggy murmured.

"You're very kind, Agent Carter."

"Steve - " By chance or by design, Tony's voice preceded him. He appeared at the other end of the hall, beckoning for them to join him. "Peggy. Come on, I think you might be able to help."

Steve kept hold of Peggy's hand as they went up a flight of stairs to Howard's - Tony's - den. The only other person there was James, slouched in an overstuffed chair and contemplating a snifter of brandy.

"Where's Dr. Banner?" asked Steve.

"Shockingly, he bowed out of this conversation of his own free will," said James dryly. "Said the fewer people who 'knew about this', the better. I have no idea what he meant by 'this'."

"I do, and I admire the discretion that I may or may not ever be able to achieve," said Tony, even more dryly. "Sit, sit."

He closed all the doors and threw himself down in the chair at the desk.

"So far, we've been able to narrow down the most important documents to a few boxes," he began. "Most important, meaning the documents pertaining to Howard's investigation into a possible mole, and those related to Agent Carter's long nap."

He took up a thick handful of papers, stapled and clipped together in several parts, and scribbled on the page on top. "Sorry, just thought of something else I need to check. Anyway.

"It appears that Howard managed to confirm the identity of at least two people who, though ostensibly members of SHIELD, actually pledged allegiance to Hydra. He didn't leave any hint as to their names, locations, rank, specialties, anything, just that there were two that he knew of, and that once those two were discovered, others would be revealed. The only tidbit I was able to decipher was a reference to 'the Carter archive', by which I'm guessing he meant you, Peggy."

"Plausible," she conceded. She was unwilling to volunteer further information, even in front of the three men she trusted most in this or any other time. Tony gave her a look as though he admired her poker face and went on speaking.

"Setting that aside... for now... What Bruce and I were going nuts about earlier was an interview with Zola that hinted at a timeline fo sorts for his megalomaniacal plot. We followed Howard's coded clues to the science book in a certain box, which had notes in the margins..."

"Vintage Howard," James put in. "His notes were always legible, but not always comprehensible."

He and Tony exchanged a grin.

"What it boils down to is that in the late 1960s, it was predicted that a certain star would go nova and release a massive wave of gamma radiation, which would reach Earth some time in 1989. The dumbed-down version of the result is that anything that remotely resembled tesseract energy should have been affected by the radiation."

"Meaning that Howard's fragment should have been awakened at that time," Peggy guessed.

"Did the radiation not arrive on schedule?" asked Steve.

"Oh, it did," said Tony grimly. "For better or worse, the wave peaked on the same day as a geomagnetic storm, caused by solar activity in our system, that was so strong it knocked out power in various parts of North America and Europe. Between the anomalies in Earth's magnetic field and the gamma radiation - well, they seem to have - cancelled each other out."

"Not a scientist, here," said James, "but that sounds *bad*."

"You could say that," said Tony. "At least, for both Zola and Howard. Zola was dead by then - by most definitions of 'dead' - and however he'd intended to make use of the gamma burst, well, there's no indication in Howard's records that anything related to Zola occurred.

"Howard's problem was that he'd also counted on that gamma burst to throw the switch on your resurrection, Peggy. He spent the next couple of years working feverishly on some other way to bring his tesseract fragment up to speed. I thought it had something to do with Rogers, here, myself - " Tony nodded to Steve - "because the old man was still looking for him, and I'd heard him muttering to himself about 'power source' and 'gamma rays' and thought that he was working on an advanced scanner of some kind."

"Muttering to himself?" Steve frowned.

"I was nineteen," said Tony. "Already out of MIT, wanting to prove myself in the family business. Used to lurk around his lab hoping for a chance to pitch in."

"By lurk, do you mean plant a listening device like you did on the carrier?" Steve said.

"No idea what you're talking about," Tony replied airily. "I never got any useful information from my lurkings, anyway - or so I thought. Turns out that dusty old model of the first Expo was the key to this element - " he tapped the glowing circle under his shirt - "and now, it turns out those dusty old boxes, disks, printouts, whatever, might be the key to what Zola was up to _and_ to your return to the land of the living."

He was looking at Peggy when he said, "If I'm right about what I've decoded so far, the answer lies in a song."


	30. Chapter 30

It took an immense effort on Peggy's part to maintain her poker face, but she fancied she did it well enough.

"What song might that be?" she asked.

"His notes mention three people who know the song that's the key to the central message," Tony replied. "James Falsworth, Jim Morita, and last, and I quote, 'a lady to be named later'."

"More riddles," Peggy snorted. "Well, James?"

"I know a lot of songs, my dear," he said mildly. Turning to Tony, he asked, "Any chance of narrowing it down?"

"He says it's a song about Hitler - "

"Doesn't narrow it much," Steve muttered.

" - and his testicles," Tony grinned. "In fact, I think I know the song. He was constantly whistling it in the lab.

> _"Hitler has only got one ball - "_

"Tony," Steve interrupted immediately. "Not really suitable for mixed company, is it?"

"Come now, Steve," Peggy said. "I have no delicate sensibilities to protect. They were lost in the war."

She joined in as Tony started over.

> _"Hitler has only got one ball,_  
>  _Goehring has two, but very small,_  
>  _Himmler has something sim'lar,_  
>  _And poor old Goebbels has no balls at all!"_

James was roaring with laughter. "I can almost smell the pub we learned that in," he grinned. "How on earth is it relevant to Howard's research?"

"Apparently it isn't, not any more," said Tony, his expression sobering. "I tried applying the words to the document I think is crucial and came up with - gibberish. Actual gibberish - I ran it past JARVIS' decode function and it isn't the key."

"Not a riddle," Steve grimaced. "A wild goose chase."

"Can you tell when the coded document was written, Tony?" Peggy asked.

"No date, and his handwriting never varied, so no telling his age when he wrote it. And it is written, not typed."

Time for a leap of faith, Peggy thought.

"I think the letter he left for me might shed some light," she said. Tony didn't look at all surprised, James looked guarded, and Steve looked startled.

"It does mention that song, obliquely," she continued. "But there was an addendum, a bit of paper that was obviously added later, with strings of characters that might be relevant to your code question."

She held the addendum out to Tony, who frowned at it.

" _Where do you hang your washing?_ What the hell?"

James barked out a laugh, then looked around at the other three blank expressions.

"Surely you remember that one," he said to Steve and Peggy. "You at least, Peggy.

> _"We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line._  
>  _Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?_  
>  _We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line._  
>  _'Cause the washing day is here..._

"I first heard it quite early on in the war, so you might have missed it, Rogers," James explained. "You know what the Siegfried Line was, of course."

"Sure," said Steve. "Fortifications the Germans built, west of their territory, east of the Maginot Line."

"Fortunately, I wouldn't need to know that in order to decode the message," said Tony as his eyes scanned the note. "All I need is nine letters, and 'Siegfried' has nine letters..."

He spun round to grab paper and pen from his desk and started scribbling and muttering.

"So that's the key word," Steve said thoughtfully. "What's the point of mentioning the Hitler song, then?"

"Perhaps that was his first choice for a key word," James suggested. "Something from the lyrics. And for some reason he had to change the key, so he managed to add the second note to the first."

"Or had someone add it for him," Peggy said. "He couldn't have come near that facility without arousing suspicion as to his connection with it. It's his writing, though."

"Someone he'd trust with his life," said Steve. "Who wouldn't question the contents, who would follow Howard's directions to the letter."

"Someone who had a perfect reason to visit the clinic from time to time," Peggy added.

They were both looking steadily at James, who didn't blink or squirm as he spoke.

"Someone on their board of directors, I should think."

"And you didn't know what the note said?" asked Steve.

"No idea. I wondered if, perhaps, he had discovered something about Rogers' fate, but I couldn't imagine why he'd be so enormously secretive about it. Either way, I didn't look at the paper at all - I asked for a minute alone down there with your coffin, Peg, and wedged it in behind the cube fragment. The note he sent me along with it said not to leave it anywhere on your person, as it must not be found by the wrong people."

"And it's directly concerned with the tesseract, only tangentially with Peggy's revival," said Tony over his shoulder, still scribbling. "I need to call Bruce in over this. If anyone has a problem with that - well, speak now so I can shoot down your objection."

There were no objections, of course, but Tony was still working out the code by the time Bruce had been brought up to speed.

"So something changed," he said thoughtfully. "Between the time you went to sleep, Peggy, and whenever Howard wrote that second note - ?" 

He looked at James, who said, "1968." 

"And as far as anyone knows, he didn't come near the clinic ever again?" 

"As far as we know," said James. "He never mentioned the clinic, or anything connected with it, after that." 

"What do you know about Dr. Hodges?" Peggy asked suddenly. 

"Only what's in her CV," Bruce said. "Born, educated, etc." 

"JARVIS," Peggy said then. "Do you have information on Dr. Hodges' family?" 

"Certainly, Ms. Carter. Is there anyone in particular who interests you?" 

"Someone named Hodges, who was in the military - trained at Camp Lehigh at the same time as Captain Rogers." 

"Gilbert Alfred Hodges," came the answer readily. "He was also part of the contingent sent to Italy at the time of the Azzano operation. He was honorably discharged after an injury that left shrapnel in his legs, and went on to college courtesy of the GI Bill." 

"Is he still alive?" 

"He died in 1968 of lung cancer and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery." 

"And how was he related to Dr. Lee Hodges?" 

"He was her father, Ms. Carter." 

Bruce was watching her. Now he asked, "And this is relevant because...?" 

"I'm not sure. But I remember Hodges, now. Big, brawny, a bully." 

"He's the guy you socked in the jaw, our first day," Steve put in. He was smirking at Peggy. "He was mouthing off at you 'cause you were a woman." 

"He was mouthing off because he was an idiot," Peggy said tartly. "I was much relieved when Dr. Erskine declined to pass him for Operation Rebirth." 

"An interesting coincidence," said James. 

"I need to speak to Marianne," Peggy decided. "She's personally acquainted with Dr. Hodges; perhaps she has some insight." 

"Insight into what?" Steve frowned. 

"Call it a hunch." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first song is sung to the tune of the "Colonel Bogey March", which features prominently in the film _Bridge On The River Kwai_. [Here's a clip from the film _John Rabe_ with Steve Buscemi singing it.](http://youtu.be/-K9or6hhjmI)
> 
> The second song can be heard [here.](http://youtu.be/-BuetfQ3xQw)


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to DigitalDreamn, who has been a gentle but faithful reminder.

"Never ignore a hunch," gloated Tony Stark. "Hunches are good. We like hunches."

Marianne looked uncertain; Peggy just rolled her eyes.

Tony had re-sorted the piles of paper covering the expanse of the dining room table, narrowing his search to one particular pile of papers, and he leaned on the table, staring at the pile as if it were a crystal ball.

"If the code word really is 'Siegfried', and the message on that note is correct, there should be something in this pile that'll clue us in as to Howard's intentions," he told the assembled company, which consisted of Bruce, James, Steve, Marianne, and Peggy. "If this only leads to yet another enigmatic hint I'll -- I don't know what I'll do." 

Bruce murmured, "I'm sure it'll involve large quantities of alcohol."

Tony grinned at him, then began rifling through the pile, taking each piece of paper, perusing it quickly, and then passing it to Bruce, who passed it along. No one spoke, and the only one of them who seemed to understand any of the data was Tony, whose expression became more and more grim as he read.

One of the items in the pile was a large manila envelope, out of which Tony carefully drew an x-ray film. Laying it on top of a plain white piece of paper, he looked long and hard at it.

"This one's pretty fragile," he said at last. "Anyone who wants to have a look should come over here; I don't want to pass it around."

The others crowded around to peer at the film. At Marianne's sharp intake of breath, Tony said immediately, "Is that who I think it is? You've seen her current records, right?"

"It seems to be," said Marianne cautiously. "There's no tag on this film - it looks as though it's been blacked out. But it could be."

"It is. I cracked that rib on one of our raids," said Peggy, looking closely and pointing. "But why would my x-ray be hidden away in Howard's archives?" 

"Based on the notes I've already seen, and the data from this collection of documents, it's an x-ray from an evaluation made before you went into stasis," Tony said. "I don't think this was done by Howard's people, though. For one thing, as far as I can tell, this type of film doesn't match the stuff from his other experiments from that period. And if it was SHIELD or SSR, it'd have their stamp all over it."

"Howard had tests done on everyone who qualified for the 'hibernation project', as a baseline." Peggy stared at the film. "It was about six weeks before I went under. But I saw my results, and the x-ray didn't look like this."

"This x-ray shows evidence of some kind of bone tumor, but it's like none I've ever seen," said Marianne. "It's fairly widespread throughout the rib cage. Now, here are the results from x-rays we took about a week after you were revived. Here's the cracked rib - the injury is visible in both images - but in the newer image, there's no sign of cancer anywhere. Nor in any of the other tests we ran."

"You were sick when you went under," Steve said, "and healed when you woke up. Did you know you were sick?"

There was no pain in his expression - just curiosity and concern. Peggy was relieved.

"I knew I was sick," she said. "So did Howard. Nobody we knew could figure out why, but we had our suspicions.

"A few weeks before I went into hibernation, I was called in to HQ for a series of tests and procedures, ostensibly to establish benchmarks for women in the military. When I began to feel really ill, I tried to find the unit who'd done the testing - but their whereabouts were unknown and top secret. Above my clearance, even though I'd been their guinea pig."

"Our tax dollars at work," Tony muttered. "And their records were probably gone, too, right?"

Peggy nodded. "No one I could reach, at any level, knew anything about the tests. Not in Intelligence, the SSR, regular Army, no one. I was getting skeptical looks from my inquiries - and Howard said I was running out of time."

"If the x-rays Howard took were healthy, and if this was taken during or after the secret tests only a few weeks before your hibernation," Marianne said slowly, "then whatever this is was definitely progressing alarmingly fast."

"Are you saying that Howard put you in sleep mode to stop the - whatever this is?" Bruce asked. "Or was he hoping to find a cure?"

"Suddenly, his motive in setting up a cancer clinic doesn't seem so odd after all," said James.


End file.
